


heart eyes

by sugawu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Parenting, Bokuto is sad, Bullying, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Growing Up, Insecurity, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, We love him, akaashi has ANXIETY!, artist akaashi, based off of i'll give you the sun but not really, character study i think, its fine though, kuroo is kinda toxic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugawu/pseuds/sugawu
Summary: This is what it was supposed to feel like, Akaashi thought. Two people melting into each other, like the shared heat between them could create a new world between their differences.They were a satellite, floating within the vast alienation of space. They’d created a new universe.I was the earth, and you were shining down on me.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 77
Kudos: 131





	1. bloody noses and existential reasoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i so badly wanted to write a fic about growing up, especially the hardships of growing up and all the angst and suffering that comes with it lmao so!
> 
> thats what this is. a fic about growing up.
> 
> enjoy <3

* * *

Parks were cool. People weren't.

Maybe that's how it started: Akaashi’s back pressed against the brawny kid's chest- fuck his life- as his friend dug through a thin sketchbook, ripping out papers and stomping on them with dirty, white sneakers. The proximity was enough to make him want to bathe in ice, probably, but it was _most definitely_ not due to the boy holding his arms and legs in restraint. It was because it was summer and the school's air conditioner had broken, thus supplying anyone within a twenty mile radius heat stroke. The sweat running down his face was from natural causes, he convinced himself.

Akaashi watched the pages, _his pages,_ get ripped out one by one until there were only blank papers. It slowly felt like there were more parts being ripped out of himself, like the upperclassmen harassing him were slowly removing small strings of his insides and tying them into knots.

There was also the whole 'being held against his will' thing; the boy who held him in a chokehold was almost twice Akaashi’s size and was so close he could smell his breath. The heat radiating off of both their bodies was enough to send him into a downwards spiral. There was no one else around, the area behind the playground empty, so naturally, any sign of assistance seemed unlikely.

Akaashi's new standard, he decided, was to never skip classes again, even if the people were annoying and purposely liked to bother him. He'd asked to go to the bathroom, as one does, with his sketchpad stuffed into his pants, and instead snuck out onto the playground using one of the backdoors with the alarm that never actually goes off. Everything was content and serene, even if the September heat wave seemed to have a desire to destroy everything in its path.

The junior high barely had a park; giving it the title of a playground would be giving it the extra credit it didn’t need. There were two swings, a sand pit, a metal slide that had more than once given Akaashi’s thighs second degree burns, and some strange abstract piece that the school labeled a jungle gym. The area wasn't distinctly connected to the school, but most attendants still hung around there when time was given. Akaashi didn't mind really, most of the people in his class were irritating and could easily set a desk on fire if they'd set their mind to it. He wasn't a people person anyway, neither a _friends_ person.

Maybe a bit of a stretch, there was Kenma, but he shouldn’t have to count. They weren’t really friends anyway, just coexisted in mutual silent judgement of others and sometimes ate lunch together.

What Akaashi wasn’t expecting, per say, was to accidentally meander past the playground and behind the fence, into what seemed like two high school first year’s absolutely drifting off their asses. Their uniforms were sagged in the heat, though Akaashi could still make out the high school’s symbol on their white button-ups. There was also the sharpness of their features looking (only slightly) more mature than his own. And the excessive height of course, which was another major giveaway. 

At first it was fine, Akaashi just stood there with that stupid expression, hoping that if he didn't move maybe they wouldn't see him. He'd been the one to take the turn past the fence anyway, to skip class, to wander off in search of doing something better than wallowing in his own self despair because of his idiotic complex.

There was a quick plan formed in Akaashi’s mess of a brain, he almost booked it the opposite way, but the map of escape routes seemed to completely vanish from his mind as the two boys practically dismembered every limb on his body just with their eyes. He hoped they didn’t see the seven stages of grief pass over his face.

It’s not like he hasn’t dealt with stupid upperclassmen before. He just hadn’t dealt with upperclassmen who liked to hold their victims in a backwards hug it seemed, which only made the whole ordeal worse for some reason. One of the boys, Akaashi labeled him as mullet-head, was still losing his shit on the sketchbook at his feet, which was also quite hurtful. At that point, there was just acceptance, that whatever was going to happen, would just happen. Akaashi didn’t _care_ , he told himself, if they were going to throw him into a fountain: so be it. If they were going to personally eat him alive: so _fucking_ be it. The two boys were tiny grasshoppers gnawing on spare leaves and Akaashi was a ravenous spider, searching for its next-

“Really mature of you both, picking on an twelve year old.”

The voice didn’t register in all three of their minds at first, the harassment towards Akaashi continuing, until the voice actively approached the trio. The first year’s expressions switched from surprised, to confused, to straight humorous. The kid who patronized the two first years stood there with hands on his hips. Two golden eyes locked onto Akaashi and the boy holding him, as well as mullet-head.

Akaashi just sighed, because of course.

“And what’re you gonna do about it? Aren’t you supposed to be learning times tables? Get lost,” mullet-head replied, a smirk lighting up his face. 

The boy holding Akaashi in a deathlock pressed himself harder against Akaashi’s back, the sweat forming on his forehead again rolling down the side of his face. The heat was replaced with fire as he focused his eyes on mullet-head and the golden-eyed kid start to quarrel, trying to attach his attention to anything but the kid behind him. The boy, still gripping on tightly to him, seemed to be stubborn and seemed to have no intent of letting go. Akaashi moved to try and get free by forcing his arms out, which only elicited a chuckle from his captor. He let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he had been holding in, adjusting his back so he wasn’t pressed directly against- _oh god._

This wasn’t happening. This was not. _Fucking._ Happening.

Akaashi hoped, prayed, the boy holding him didn’t feel his entire body go stiff, but from his expression, he probably noticed. Mullet-head glanced at them, then back at the kid with yellow eyes to continue their argument. Akaashi couldn’t focus on anything, his mind fogged. He felt the entire world combust into flames when he thought of the boy holding him being even remotely aroused at his shaking figure.

The thought itself made him want to hurl, which might’ve been a good escape tactic, now that he thought about it. Not that he could think correctly anyway.

“Wanna, like, help? He kept botherin’ us, so figured we’d mess around with em’ a little,” mullet-head slurred. The boy restraining Akaashi let out a small noise of protest, but still stayed rooted to the spot. Mullet-head just shrugged as a way of saying, _‘what else you want me to do?’_

Akaashi stared intently at the boy with yellow eyes, taking in his stature, trying to meet his stare to send a telepathic signal for ‘help’. He took into account his dark-ish hair that spiked up, probably not naturally, and his tall-ish frame that seemed to be eye level with mullet-head. He wasn’t very tall, but wasn’t short either. 

He was definitely loud, he had that air of confidence stuck to him like a wart. Definitely someone Akaashi had never spoken to before. Definitely someone he never would’ve spoken to, considering the circumstances.

The whole situation was feverish. Akaashi’s body wasn’t moving, he didn’t know if he breathed (maybe he’d suffocate; that’d be a good outcome), he didn’t know if the boy behind him was aware of his _issue_ , and he didn’t know if he was about to watch some innocent classmate of his get beaten to a pulp before his eyes.

“Help what? You don’t seem like you need any help. You seem _very_ capable in what you’re doing here,” the kid said, dripping sarcasm, as if he wanted to die. Akaashi let his head fall in defeat. It was a stupid comeback, but it still seemed to set the two first years on edge momentarily.

Mullet-head’s face twisted in irritation, but he quickly changed it to look more devilish, less exasperated, before turning back to his quote-on-quote competition.

Akaashi just wanted to know why the kid with spiky hair cared. The whole situation was tiring, Akaashi was a simple person with simple needs, he just needed a fucking _break_ from everything, everyone, all the stimulation happening around him all the time. If he had just minded his own business, he would’ve never came into contact with these two idiots and the kid with spiky hair would’ve never inserted himself into his own death sentence. Akaashi just wanted to go and sit by the fence and draw flowers, or something, anything to just let him take a breath of fresh air.

It was a pretty quick exchange of communication between the two first years; the boy holding Akaashi dropped him, or in worse context threw him, and they both approached the boy with golden-eyes as he stood tall with ambiguity. Akaashi watched his posture slowly begin to slouch as he was pursued (and outnumbered) with only the smallest bit of fear in his eyes. With fast hands, Akaashi grabbed his footprint stained sketchbook and stood up, preparing to bolt the opposite way so he could return to his class and further act like none of this ever actually happened.

But that was the thing, it _did_ happen, and because of that, Akaashi Keiji learned three things about the boy with spiky hair that day: that he’d turned thirteen the week before, his name was Bokuto Koutarou, and that his nose was very much so broken.

Also that he was, in fact, very loud. 

Everything was always too much and Bokuto didn’t seem to really understand that personal boundary. Akaashi had stood there rooted to the ground with shaky hands as Bokuto was punched square on his nose. Once. Two times. Maybe even more; the picture began to blend together into a mess of three people, all reaching for one goal.

The worst part, was that Bokuto didn’t seem to notice. The two of them sat there outside the nurse’s office after the encounter, a good piece of space between them, and Bokuto launched into conversation as if there wasn’t a line of blood dripping out of his nostrils and onto his pants. He talked to Akaashi as if they were best friends, as if they’d seen each other in every inch of their lives, as if they’d grown up next to each other. His voice sounded as if he’d put a clothespin over his nose, it was obviously strained, he was obviously in pain, but still his voice was chirpy and _happy._

That was the part that baffled Akaashi the most. The person, let him reiterate the fact that they didn’t know each other, who made the effort during school hours to come and aid some weird art kid and _fail_ in the process, was happy. If there weren't any obvious signs of struggle written all over his body, you’d think he was perfectly fine.

It was too much.

“-and then Kuroo was like, ‘isn’t that Yoshiki? He’s messing with some seventh grader’, and I was like, weirded out, and stuff, because why does Kuroo know so many high schoolers, but that's not the point-”

“Shut up.”

Akaashi didn’t like the temper that travelled with his own voice, because he wasn’t a mean person, but a headache was slowly beginning to transform into a migraine, and he just couldn’t deal with it anymore. Bokuto talked so fast, with so much engrossment attached to his words, it was fucking annoying and made Akaashi want to smash two pillows over his ears. Akaashi wished Bokuto would like, be mad at him or something for not helping. It would’ve made this whole interaction so much easier.

“Oh- I’m sorry.” Bokuto sounded genuine, sickeningly genuine. He mumbled it that time, staring at the side of Akaashi’s head like it was something meant to be stared at. There was no defeat in his words like how Akaashi had hoped there would be.

Akaashi almost threw up, right there, on the bench next to the nurse’s office. He didn’t even know why he was there, he had not a single scratch on him. 

“Why’d you do it? You were outnumbered, I don’t even know you.”

The words came out smaller and quieter, less Akaashi-like, than he would’ve wanted. He wanted to yell at Bokuto for intervening, scold him like a parent, because then his face wouldn’t be fucked up and it wouldn’t be Akaashi’s fault.

Akaashi felt guilty. He didn’t want to admit he felt guilty.

Bokuto let out a shrill laugh, losing no time in answering the question, “Like I said, it was mostly bad timing,” he locked eyes with Akaashi, a grin taking up a large portion of his face.

“Me and Kuroo always go and chill by the rails during English, because that shit is _bor-ing,_ and we just happened to be passing by you and your, uh, art-book, being totally _demolished_ by shitface one and two.” Bokuto laughed then, even if he seemed to wince along with it.

Bokuto paused before speaking moments later, “You should’ve seen your face."

A vein popped in Akaashi’s forehead, “That’s not funny. The guy holding me-”

“As I was saying!” Bokuto held his arms up, as if he could brush away Akaashi’s words with a wipe of his hand, “I didn’t even see it at first, I was totally into whatever Kuroo was saying, but then he said he knew the guy, yenno, the one going to town on your sketchbook thingy.”

Akaashi stared at the ground to stop him from personally assaulting Bokuto in the middle of the school’s hallway.

“I didn’t really care but you looked like you were gonna combust on the spot. Being the nice person I am, I thought maybe I could like talk to Yoshiki- that’s the guy, just saying- and maybe yell at him to stop or something, but...” Bokuto laughed again, this time the noise echoing through each and every classroom and returning back to Akaashi’s ears like a boomerang.

“Guess that didn’t work out,” Akaashi mumbled.

Bokuto nodded, seemingly ignoring the harsh intent behind Akaashi’s words, “Kuroo dipped as soon as I went up to the guy; he wasn’t expecting me to actually do it, but I don’t back down from anything!” he emphasized his words by throwing his arms up again, the blood under his nose now dried.

“You still didn’t answer _why_ -”

“Because I felt bad, dude. I don’t know, okay? I just did. Aren’t you happy they didn’t like, kill you, or something? I got enough attention so a teacher could come and properly help out. I mean that’s something, right?” Bokuto was staring at his head again, hopeful. Akaashi kept his eyes on his feet.

“They wouldn’t have killed me. Or beat me up, or anything, they were just being stupid.”

_Why should you care?_

Bokuto sighed for what seemed like the eighth time, slouching down into a rather uncomfortable looking position, “Yoshiki’s friend had you in a pretty tight grip. That didn’t look like nothing. You looked like you wanted to cry.”

The images, the feeling, it all rushed back to Akaashi in a singular second, like time stopped and rotated around his fleeting mentality. He hated it, he hated _them,_ he hated Bokuto, he hated everyone and everything, he hated the world, the entire fucking universe for ever creating him, he hated it for letting him be apart of daily life, for inserting himself into the lives of anyone.

Then there was a hand on his shoulder and Akaashi felt himself go stiff.

“You okay?” his soft voice, much quieter this time, worry laced in his voice. 

Akaashi untensed his shoulders temporarily and looked up at Bokuto for the first time since they’d been sitting there. 

“Are _you_ okay?”

Bokuto looked genuinely surprised, as if no one had ever seemed to fully care for his well being. “I mean- yeah. Yeah, I’m great,” he returned, cracking a smile, his irises filled with nothing but pure glee. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t particularly telling the truth either, much to the aid of his physical appearance. 

Despite everything, he looked _alive._ Akaashi had no doubt that Bokuto would do it all again, if he could, and he would try again with just as much fury, if not more. He knew, just from looking at Bokuto’s smile, that he was one of those weirdos that saw himself lose at something in third person, like watching a security camera tape of himself, then used that footage to come back at whatever he lost and do it twenty times better than he did previously. He seemed like the type of person to not particularly _enjoy_ losing, but took it as an opportunity to make himself better, to push himself further so that when the time came, he didn’t lose again.

Bokuto smirked, scooting closer to Akaashi, and Akaashi let him, “We’ll get our revenge on them right? We’ll beat them up. Get them _real_ good. They won’t bother you again.”

And that confirmed it.

He didn’t want to be friends with Bokuto. He didn’t like people like Bokuto, he was too brash, too deafening, people like them just didn’t get along. Akaashi wishes he could say he sent back something snarky, something alike himself, something witty and perfectly unnecessary. 

But Akaashi just nodded, as if it was completely normal.

Bokuto got two weeks of suspension and a week of grading papers for fighting on school grounds. Even if Akaashi didn’t contribute to the fight, which was only believable because of the obvious lack of scuffle on his being, he was taken out for the rest of the week for skipping class. Yoshiki and his friend had scurried away like mice once the figure of authority showed up, so neither Akaashi nor Bokuto had any idea of what happened to the duo, if anything.

Akaashi wishes that's where it ended. And maybe that _was_ where it ended, maybe that's how a section of both their lives ended, only to start anew. They had been called into the nurse’s office and while Bokuto had been taken into treatment immediately, Akaashi sat by the front desk, watching students faking stomach aches come and go through the door. The woman sitting behind the desk had her stone eyes attached to her phone, not giving anything else her full attention.

After almost an hour of Akaashi sitting in his own self deprecation, Bokuto came around the corner with a makeshift cast around his nose. The bridge was wrapped up in white bandages and the tip was bright purple, from what Akaashi could see. There were several Band-Aids littered around different parts of his face, although there was no blood to accommodate them. The nurse had explained that he had to get his nose checked immediately so it could be properly treated, that she’d already called both their parents, and that Bokuto would have some pretty gnarly bruises. She also mentioned how there probably wasn’t going to be any permanent damage, besides the broken nose, which wasn’t as bad as she thought it was.

Akaashi still felt guilty, still felt like it was his fault, yet even as the superior of the school reprimanded them both, he still couldn’t bring himself to admit what had really happened over the assumptions. He wanted to say that Bokuto and him were _not_ friends and that if he had just stayed out of it, none of this would’ve happened. Akaashi would’ve probably just ended up with a bruise on his knee, or something, and maybe some more deep rooted insecurities that Yoshiki and his friend would’ve only fueled.

Bokuto didn’t seem to mind; he probably didn’t even notice Akaashi’s internal conflict. He still had that stupid expression of his, you know, the one that takes up his whole face to form. Eyebrows tilted and everything.

The two weeks that followed were supposed to be used as a time for Akaashi to recover and act like the encounter never happened. His mother bought him a new sketchbook and tried to salvage as much as the old one as she could, although there really wasn’t much to salvage since there wasn’t much remaining anyway. His father tried to persuade Akaashi to reveal the facial details of what the two first years looked like, to which he refused to tell, and began a small rampage towards the school board for not stepping in quicker (which Akaashi, also, did not take part in). His father also gave him quite a bit of shit for not standing up for himself, but that was to be expected. It wasn’t like this was the first time something like this happened.

Then the rumors started. Akaashi didn’t know how it spread, these things had never spread previously, but a little birdy in his head told him that it might’ve been Bokuto’s friends sneaking in acidic words. When Akaashi had returned to school the following week, his classmates made it fairly obvious that they were whispering about how some kid in the eighth grade been handed a coupon for facial reconstruction surgery (exaggeration, obviously). It was pretty obvious both Akaashi and Bokuto had been absent for similar time frames, so students began to connect the dots one by one.

Everyone seemed to understand that Bokuto wasn’t one to back down from something like this, nonetheless fail at it. Everyone also knew that Akaashi was mediocre in height, build, and overall much smaller than Bokuto. When the inquiry that Akaashi was the one who supplied the facial reconstruction coupon, it only added salt to the wounds

It was absolutely. Fucking. Horrible.

Being the center of attention was one thing, but being the center of attention when you’re socially anxious and know that the reason you’re the center of attention is false reasoning is one of the main equivalents to child birth. It felt like Akaashi had PTSD, every time he’d turn a corner there was someone watching him, like he’d done something legendary, or in the mind of Bokuto’s friends, for example, they looked at him like he killed a puppy, or something. 

Some part inside of him wanted to announce over the PA system that although Bokuto broke his nose, Yoshiki had walked away with a bloody lip and a bruised cheek because Bokuto does _not fucking back down,_ but he also figured Bokuto would end up gassing himself up once he returned anyway. He didn’t need that extra narcissistic merging lane.

He also wanted to announce that the last thing he would ever do would be fight Bokuto. Check first statement for reasoning. 

“It wasn’t even your fault,” Kenma reassured through a mouth full of apples, his eyes focused onto the phone balanced on his knee.

“But it _was_ -”

“You just watched it happen, right? Nothing more than that?”

Akaashi grumbled a response, his cheek squished into grass and dirt. Kenma nodded as a way of saying, ‘ _I expected that answer because I’m always right’,_ and when Akaashi makes no effort to further the conversation (because he knew that was the truth), he defeatedly let the sounds of cicadas and birds fill his ears instead of his own existential dread. Kenma scooted sideways so his crossed knees were facing Akaashi’s body, flat on the ground. Kenma took an apple slice out of its plastic bag and held it out to the other boy. Akaashi lifted his head to take the fruit into his mouth.

He was still scowling at the ground.

When Kenma had found Akaashi outside during their lunch hour, he’d expected to see the kid tragically chewing on milk bars or doodling plants on his arms, something completely normal and Akaashi-like.

He wasn’t expecting to find Akaashi face down in one of the schools practice fields.

All he said was, ‘I’m tanning’, and left it at that.

Maybe it was the people, Akaashi thought, he was never much of a people person. People were okay, but only certain variations of them, Bokuto was obviously a good person, but still aggravating. The more Akaashi verbalized the inncident, and the more Kenma shut him up about it, it started to seem more and more like it never happened, because _who the fuck does that?_

“It’s not that weird of a thing to do, some people have good morals-”

“ _Some people have good morals,_ shut up,” Akaashi responded in the squeakiest voice he could muster, attempting to mock Kenma as much as he could, “I have good morals.”

Kenma sighed, his bag of apples officially empty, “You just proved my point.”

Akaashi almost jumped up and left, his knees already locking in an upwards position. Kenma still didn’t look up from his phone, his chin balanced on his palm. There was a brief moment where it was just Akaashi staring at the side of Kenma’s head, trying to figure what went through the shorter kids mind. That was who Kenma was, he was easy to manage, but difficult to read.

The bell chimed in the distance. Akaashi lifted his eyes from his shoes and onto his friend’s slouched form. His face was still unmoving, his cat-like eyes darting from one edge of the screen to the next. The area around them was surprisingly calming. As calming as a practice field could be.

“Wanna skip with me? I don’t wanna go to English.”

Kenma peeled his eyes away from his phone, “The last time you did that, some innocent kid got a broken nose-”

“You could just say no, you know.”


	2. skulls and oikawa tooru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akaashi, in other contexts, would’ve grabbed his shit and left, specifically because the area was deserted and he wasn’t in the mood to be murdered, but in this context, he found himself wishing the angel of death would just come and sit her fat asscheeks on his forehead. 
> 
> Akaashi felt himself sigh once he saw the kid’s hair.

Maybe it wasn’t fear, maybe it was just Akaashi’s body rejecting the want to go outside. It was like eating something you weren’t supposed to, a stomach bug of sorts. His brain was just sending him incorrect signals. It was just his brain protecting him, he thought. 

“Where’re you goin’?”

There it was.

Akaashi’s knees went stiff, his body went stiff, the whole world went stiff. Akaashi turned his head so it was facing the hallway that led into the living room, his father perched on the side of the couch. He still had his work clothes on, a white button-up with a tie hanging down the front. His face still carried an air of casualness, even if he didn’t look comfortable.

Akaashi stayed in place, never letting his eyes make direct contact. His father looked alarmingly similar to Akaashi, from his distant expression to the way his eyebrows furrowed in when he was focused on something. Akaashi wasn’t _afraid_ of him; he just didn’t feel like dealing with him.

“The park. Gonna catch frogs with Tooru,” was all he managed to get out, his vocal chords seeming to collect slime.

His father turned his attention to the television, quiet voices airing out into space, “Be back before five. Have fun.”

Akaashi exhaled.

He almost tripped on his way out, the door handle becoming slippery to touch. The sun was just beginning to become less central, slowly drifting to the opposite side of the sky. It wasn’t too late, just past three, but that was usually the time Akaashi’s restlessness became too much for his brain to handle. The walls of his room had started to blend together because fuck LSD, boredom was enough to supply enough chemicals for one to completely go insane. 

Sundays were supposed to be relaxing. Akaashi never relaxed, he just chose to breathe every so often.

The road by his house was still wet from the previous night’s storm, icicles having formed along the tip of the roof as well as his bike’s handles. The heat from summer seemed to leave as fast as it came, summer quickly transforming into fall, which quickly transformed into the wrath of late November. It still hadn’t snowed, which was annoying in itself, but the consistent rain along with freezing temperatures only added to the seasonal downpour. The sun barely did anything to warm the area up, it being almost midday with no sudden change in temperature.

Akaashi wrapped his scarf tighter around himself and chopped at the icicles on his bike with the sides of his hands, small yells of dramatic encouragements leaving his mouth. His breath carried out in vapor, wrapping itself around his head like steam rising from a pot. The bike seat was surprisingly much drier than he expected, a quick run of his palm to prove it. 

The ride to the river was quick and effortless, a mix of people and buildings blending together into one mosaic. These things were easy for Akaashi, one might think these rides would be overwhelming and complicated, but this is what he was used to. You’d think the cold weather meant less people in the city, but it seemed to only bring more. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the road, voices echoing in and out of Akaashi’s ears like bells. 

Rivers were nice to draw, Akaashi thought, the flat land provided enough sitting space and there was normally enough scenery to let the artist inside him do its thing. He normally ended up with several pages of the same sketch, the river and the rocks surrounding it, sometimes with added fish, usually just in different colors. Akaashi never actually went to the river to catch frogs, as he normally used as an excuse. The water was too cold anyway.

His father didn’t agree with art. He wanted a son who played soccer, or something, and watched sports with him. He wanted a son who did normal son-and-father things with him, reference back to the sports thing. Akaashi’s father wanted a son who excelled in everything he did and had the strive and want to become a successful businessman, just like himself.

Akaashi was not whatever that was.

And then there’s the whole, ‘oh, I may also like boys which you would most definitely not support, but I’m also not completely sure because I’ve never felt anything romantic towards anyone because of my lack of emotional attachment (which you probably created). Also, I think you’re an incel’, argument which Akaashi could bring up at the dinner table, alongside of the art argument, but chose not to.

When Akaashi arrived at the waterfront, Oikawa was sat in his normal crouched position by the edge, skipping stones across the surface. The boy had a knitted hat that was much too big for him, the sides covering his ears and the majority of his head. A navy jacket that seemed to pull in his whole being was zipped up past his mouth, and Akaashi thought Oikawa looked much smaller than he was.

Akaashi tipped his bike onto one of the metal poles by the road and approached his friend from behind, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him once close enough. Oikawa showed no sign of surprise, his eyes remaining focused on the rifts in the water.

“Don’t you think its weird water does that. It like, makes circles n’ stuff.”

Akaashi grabbed his backpack off and swung it into his lap, plopping himself down next to Oikawa. “Sure,” he responded, digging out a small orange sketchbook and a sharpie from one of the large pockets.

Oikawa’s eyes drifted over to Akaashi, brown eyes tracing his fingers, “You’re not wearing any gloves.”

Akaashi looked up and bumped knees with his friend, exhaling through his nose as a way of responding.

Oikawa moved his eyes back onto the water, sighing. 

“When you get frostbite, I’m gonna laugh. I’m gonna make sure you know that I _told you so_ -”

“And that I am inferior to you because I don’t wear mittens my almost-dead grandma made me,” Akaashi finished the sentence, a small smile breaking through his exterior.

Oikawa faked offence, putting a hand to his chest dramatically, “Don’t act like my mittens aren’t the coolest things you’ve ever seen, Keiji.”

“Your mittens are most definitely not the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

Akaashi didn’t actually know Oikawa that well, conversation always just seemed to flow naturally. Oikawa knew about how this was Akaashi’s ‘calm place’, as he called it, but Akaashi never really forced anymore personal details than he needed to. Oikawa was weird and conservative, although he still normally said what he needed to, even if it could easily be taken out of context. 

He lived out of district, which was annoying, because friends weren’t something Akaashi came across too often. In a sense, it was almost like Akaashi was Oikawa’s little vessel for his rantings. Sometimes it’d be about people he didn’t like, sometimes it’d be about a cute cat he saw on his way to the waterfront, and sometimes they’d sit in silence as the fumes from Akaashi’s sharpies filled the space for them.

Oikawa was someone you would think needed attention consistently, but his brain always seemed worn out. Akaashi was observant, he knew what was going on with people before meeting them, but with Oikawa it was always difficult. It was like looking at a sculpture with all the corners carved out, but the center still devoid of material.

Akaashi wondered if that was a good or bad thing.

Oikawa balanced his eyes towards Akaashi again, curling his hands around his knees, “What’s the mood for today?”

Akaashi glanced up out of impulse, flipping his notebook to an empty page. He pulled the cap of the marker off and started piecing together lines, even if they didn’t have much form. 

“Same old shit,” he mumbled.

Oikawa snorted out a response.

The air shifted. The few people that had been loitering by the bridge and the edge of the river had taken their interests to other parts it seemed, leaving the two friends sitting by themselves. The sounds of the wind pushing the water slid past their ears, the same wind tousling Akaashi’s hair into a web of sorts. He reached up to push the black hair out of his eyes, concentrating on the work in front of him. He felt the small push of something against his right ear cavity, willfully allowing Oikawa to push the headphone in. Akaashi adjusted it so it wasn’t hanging out, soft indie music drifting through the speakers.

“What song is this?”

Oikawa shrugged, putting the other headphone in his own ear, “Not important,” he responded, tipping his cheek onto Akaashi’s shoulder to stare at his sketchbook.

This was the therapeutic part, Akaashi thought. Late-fall temperatures mixed in with Oikawa’s spa-esque music taste gave him a sense of warmth he couldn’t find anywhere else. He wishes there wasn’t the same sense of familiarity he felt with his actual family or with people he actually knew when he sat with Oikawa. He wishes he saw Oikawa as an actual friend, like Kenma, rather than something he felt he needed to shield from the rest of the world.

And then there was always something to ruin the serene moment because nothing ever good happened in Akaashi’s life. 

The scream was short lived but vicious, small cries of pain falling out of the kid’s mouth in small sputters. Akaashi felt Oikawa’s body jolt in surprise, both boys removing the earbuds and turning to where the sound came from. The street that lined the riverbank was mostly empty, no one else nearby to listen to the cat-like mewls that sounded out onto the asphalt.

Akaashi, in other contexts, would’ve grabbed his shit and left, specifically because the area was deserted and he wasn’t in the mood to be murdered, but in _this_ context, he found himself wishing the angel of death would just come and sit her fat asscheeks on his forehead. 

Akaashi felt himself sigh once he saw the kid’s hair.

Bokuto propped his leg up on the side of the curb, rolling his pant leg up so the skid was visible. A small, red trail slipped down over his knee and down into his sock, tinting the white fabric. He looked to be in visible pain, although he had nothing but a scratch.

Akaashi’s eyes had never rolled so far back in his head.

Oikawa rubbed his friends shoulder, keeping his eyes locked on Bokuto, “You know him?”

Akaashi sighed again, flipping his notebook shut and tossing it carelessly into his backpack, along with the sharpie.

“Kind of.”

Oikawa stared at him in obvious confusion, to which Akaashi ignored.

“Should we like… help him?” Oikawa quietly questioned.

Before Akaashi knew what he was doing, he was digging a Band-Aid out of his side pocket, and approaching the sporadic boy. Oikawa was hot on his heels, obviously a little too invested on whatever relationship Akaashi seemed to have with the kid. 

Bokuto noticed them pretty early, as if he knew they were watching him. His face split into a grin at the sight of Akaashi holding a Band-Aid, likely assuming they’d seen what had happened and were there to help. Oikawa peered over Akaashi’s shoulder as Bokuto held a staring contest with the latter, neither initiating what was already meant to happen.

“Funny seeing you here, first-year! And… you too, I guess,” Bokuto glanced to Oikawa, a pink tint flushing his cheeks. He gestured to his overturned bike, then to his knee, and back to the bike, “guess I should’ve been paying more attention to where I was going, huh?”

Oikawa snorted in pity, a small smile of amusement grazing his face. 

Akaashi fiddled with his fingers, “Are you alright? Do you want-”

“Yeah, that’d be great, thank you,” Bokuto pointed his knee towards Akaashi, watching him slowly unwrap the paper lining. Silence resumed as Oikawa eyed the interaction warily, obviously still confused on who Bokuto was. Akaashi still offered no background on it.

Akaashi placed the Band-Aid carefully on the cut, keeping his eyes far away from Bokuto’s face. Once it was secured in place, Bokuto seemed to hop up with much more energy than before, the same expression from earlier still going strong. His nose seemed to be fully healed by that time, no more purple around the area. There were no scratches or scars to accommodate the rest of his face either. Akaashi carved each line of Bokuto’s face with his eyes until it became noticeable, Oikawa tugging on the fabric of his jacket. Bokuto stood straight once his knee was properly bandaged and flexed his leg, as if testing the waters.

“Thanks, first-year. It’s good timing, you know cause’ you just happened to be here-”

“We’re even.”

Bokuto stiffened, “What?”

Akaashi exhaled, taking a few steps back, “It’s not the same, I guess, but this is a thank you for…helping me.”

Bokuto looked stunned, frozen in place.

“You know, with the guys n’ shit. Thanks for taking the hit for me. I think about it a lot, so thank you,” Akaashi responded, obviously strained.

Oikawa hid his laugh behind a cough.

“Of course, first-year-”

“Akaashi Keiji. Forgot I technically never told you.”

Bokuto’s entire face lit up so bright you could see it across the water, like a lighthouse. His eyes seemed to project elation, even if his eyes closed when he smiled. Akaashi watched him take a step forward, and at first, he thought Bokuto was going to hug him, but he just knocked his knuckles against his shoulder affectionately.

Akaashi felt himself get disappointed and mentally called himself a psychopath for it. 

“Cool, thanks Akaashi-chan-”

“We’re not friends,” Akaashi said quickly, pushing down the bile in his throat.

Bokuto’s face changed quickly. His expression turned tight, the muscles in his face more tense, “Yeah. Of course not. Thanks for the Band-Aid,” he laughed again.

“You’re too harsh, _Akaashi-chan_ ,” Oikawa mumbled, hiding his smile behind his friend’s jacket. 

Akaashi turned around, taking in a heavy breath before stalking down the small hill to retrieve his backpack. He resumed the earlier position, tossing out his sketchbook and sharpie onto the grass and crossing his legs so the sketchbook would sit flat on top of him. Oikawa, still giggling like a schoolgirl, retrieved his phone and sat let-to-leg to Akaashi, popping the right headphone into his ear. Akaashi took the other.

“See you around school, Akaashi-san!”

Akaashi kept his back turned, although he felt Oikawa turn and wave to Bokuto with a sarcastic laugh.

The worst part was that he wasn’t kidding. The two and a half month timeframe between the fight and now, there was no Bokuto, Akaashi had to deal with the aftermath, but it all died down fairly quick. He had expected to see Bokuto around school, to even have to associate with him, but like before, they never touched paths. Maybe it was the age difference, but he never saw Bokuto, not even once, not even during the days were he sat in the lunchroom with everyone else.

So why Bokuto had decided to slide under Akaashi’s bathroom stall during his physical education class was beyond him.

“You’re not even in this _class_ -”

“It doesn’t matter! We’re both skipping, so it cancels out.”

Akaashi dug his face farther into his palms, “You don’t know I’m skipping, I could’ve been taking a stage-four shit.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take you thirty minutes to shit.”

“What if you crawled under when I was like… making out with someone? How would you have felt then, huh?” Akaashi threw his hands up and glared from his crouching position on the toilet. His feet kept his balance underneath him. He was still staring at Bokuto in disbelief, Bokuto’s stature uncharacteristically tense.

“I would’ve given you two your privacy.”

Akaashi groaned, because what the fuck. 

“There was no way of you knowing I was not pooping, Bokuto.”

Bokuto shifted from his seated position on the tiled floor, which Akaashi almost gagged at, and stared point blank into his eyes.

“You would’ve made noise.”

Akaashi groaned again, rubbing his hands up and down his face. 

“Why were you even in the gym bathrooms?”

Bokuto shrugged, hugging his knees, “I don’t like science and the hall monitor already knows I like to sit in the bathrooms by the first year classrooms _anyway_ , so I would’ve been caught,” Bokuto rolled his eyes, as if that was already common knowledge.

“How did you know it was me? What if you slid under and it was like… some guy you didn’t know with his dick hanging out? _You don’t just crawl underneath a bathroom stall,_ ” Akaashi pressed.

Bokuto got quiet, “Your shoes. I saw your shoes,” he mumbled, ignoring the second comment.

Akaashi didn’t know what to say, because who remembered what shoes someone wore most often? It wasn’t something you just picked up, like someone’s hair color. Akaashi stared down at his black Converse, noting the little lines of pen doodles along the white part by his toes, as well as the writing along the sides. He swung his feet down off the toilet, staring at the shoes like they were part of an exhibit.

“They have little birds and cats and,” Bokuto pressed his finger to one of the poorly scribbled animals, outlining the pen with his fingertip, “aliens?”

Akaashi snorted. 

“And what does this say?” Bokuto leaned in to read the words better, “‘ _oink was here?_ ’”

Akaashi laughed louder this time, covering his hand with his fist. 

“Oikawa. It says Oikawa.”

Bokuto tilted his head to read along the side of the shoe, “And you have these green stripes along the sides and full length _paragraphs_ -”

“I get bored, okay,” Akaashi huffed.

“The skulls are really cool, lots of details. One of your art friends draw them?”

Akaashi shook his head, “Kenma did.”

Bokuto’s ears perked up, “Kozume?”

Akaashi ignored him, bumping Bokuto’s foot with his own.

“No.”

“That’s Kuroo’s neighbor! He goes over there all the time, the bitch likes him more than me.”

Akaashi's eyes pulled a dagger out of his brain and projected it at the kid sitting ahead of him. Bokuto snickered at his icy expression. He began to read more of the little notes aloud, glancing up at Akaashi each time, as if he was trying to coax a reaction out of him. The rest of the bathroom remained empty, much to both of their relief.

“I wanna draw something.”

Akaashi stared at him, ignoring the bubble growing in his stomach at those words. He told himself it was annoyance.

“We’re not friends. Only friends write on my shoes. Also, there’s no more room.”

Bokuto showed no sign of backing down, his smile only growing wider, “Can we be friends then?”

Akaashi was at first taken aback, because who just asked that? Friendship was supposed to come naturally, it was supposed to grow over time, it didn’t just happen at the snap of your fingers. Bokuto’s face was filled with hope, much to Akaashi’s dismay.

He felt the same bubble in his stomach start to move, and he told himself it was annoyance again.

“No.”

“Akaashi-san! We’re basically _besties_ , you gave me the Band-Aid of friendship,” Bokuto reached out to try and pull Akaashi into a hug, which only encouraged the latter to push him away with little, _‘ews’_ filling the quiet bathroom.

“Your hands were on the _floor_ -”

“And yours were on the toilet, but I’d still trust those hands with my life!”

Bokuto was standing up now, his arms forcing a hug around Akaashi, which he did his best to not allow. Bokuto laughed teasingly, seeming to enjoy the disgust Akaashi had displayed on his face.

He didn’t mention the small smile that he failed at holding back. He didn’t mention his face heating up at the proximity, and he didn’t mention the bubble in his stomach taking up his whole body and making it into a beehive.


	3. neon signs and party fouls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wanna go on an adventure?” Bokuto’s eyes gleamed mischievously, if you could even call it that, his lower lip caught in between his teeth. Akaashi dropped his hands to his sides, watching Bokuto’s unsteady expression. His face was split into a smile, although his eyes still carried that same sense of uncertainty he seemed to hold like a pendant. Not that he noticed.
> 
> “Yeah,” Akaashi hesitated, “Yeah, let me get my coat.”

“Happy birthday,” she whispered, pushing a small, circular plate in front of Akaashi. He stared at the slumped chocolate cupcake, a pink candle sticking out of the top. Akaashi dug his face harsher into his arms, the fabric of his hoodie supplying his chin a cushion. His mother stared expectantly across from him, observing his reaction to the treat.

Akaashi pulled the plate over with his index finger, eyeing it warily.

He didn’t respond, he just nodded and shuffled off the barseat, taking the small plate with him.

The television was bright and alive in the living room, the arch connecting both rooms bright with different colors. His mother stayed stationary behind the counter, her arms bent over the grey marbling. Her face was tired, purple bags penetrating the skin underneath her eyes. Her white work-clothes and apron stank of diner food, which Akaashi could smell even from a distance. The kitchen windows were open wide with no curtains drawn, the shadows from the night projecting a feeling Akaashi couldn’t place his finger on. It felt and tasted like sand being brutally shoved down one's throat. Snow coated the windowsill and sunk into the wood, the chill from the outside very much so present along the walls. The room was the type of cold that ate your hair follicles and made them icey, like the beginning stages of frost-bite.

God, he hated it here. He hated the city, he hated his neighborhood, his house, and this stupid, fucking cupcake. There was no point in birthdays, especially not his. It was a waste of time. He just wanted to go back upstairs and scream into a pillow, or something. There was no point in his mother even putting forth the effort, he was old enough to understand birthdays come and go like mosquito seasons.

“I’m sorry this year’s sucked for you. It gets better.”

Akaashi stuck his thumb into the frosting, licking the sugar off his finger, “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

 _It’s stupid. It’s all so, so, so, so, fucking stupid._

His mother wore a warm smile, crossing her thumbs back and forth, like she was nervous, “I didn’t ask if you were okay. I know you’re okay,” she wandered from the counter, her footsteps and voice quiet alike, “but hypothetically, if you weren’t okay, if you were pushed into a wave of chaos, a riptide were the currents were so strong you couldn’t breathe,” she stalked to where Akaashi stood, her comforting hand slowly finding her sons hair. Akaashi let her, tilting his head and sinking into the feeling of her nails raking down his scalp.

“You would make something beautiful out of the chaos, wouldn’t you?”

Akaashi closed his eyes to stop the stinging.

“Maybe,” he replied quietly, keeping his voice and personality layered, making sure his mother stayed out of his head. He wouldn’t let her get past the mental guards he’d built so gracefully for himself, he didn’t know if he could deal with the woman his mother would become if she read his thoughts.

Akaashi glanced into the living room at his father's sleeping figure, both of his legs thrown out in two different positions, gracefully so. He refused to look into his mother’s eyes, both parts producing Medusa-like effects, where he’d probably turn to stone and break down right in front of her if they made eye contact.

She removed her hand and moved both her palms over his shoulders, smoothing out the fabric, “We can go out and do something tomorrow if you’d like. I haven’t had the time to go out and get you somethin’, so I figured I’d make it up to you somehow. It hasn’t been easy for you lately.” 

Akaashi moved his stare to the floorboards below them. He wasn’t wearing any socks, his feet barren and cold below him.

“We can go get lunch, maybe, and go to the aquarium, or-”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I like cupcakes… cupcakes are cool,” Akaashi reassured, inspecting the plate and its contents. The porcelain had small birds painted on, a gift from his grandmother, he was sure. His family had similar tastes in ugly tableware.

His mother sunk back, placing her hands by her sides, “If you change your mind, I’m here. I’m always here.”

Akaashi’s feet moved on their own to the stairwell. His feet slapped against the wood, his back turned straight against his mother.

“I’ll always be here, honey. Get some sleep tonight, okay?” she smiled after him.

Akaashi peered down from the staircase, his hands digging into the plate. Her words were beginning to form into less of a motherly gesture and more into a woman begging for her son to open up. It made his stomach tighten into a ball of rubber-bands because he knew what she was trying to do, and it made him want to throw up. He felt like if he threw up, right there on the stairwell with such an emotional distance between two people, he’d slowly dissolve into a pile of cigarette ashes. 

“Night,” he replied, letting his mouth curve up.

Could he call himself mad? Was he allowed to call himself mad, like was that a valid option?

Akaashi stumbled up into his room and roughly shut the door behind him. He placed the plate onto his nightstand and tugged on the first pair of socks he found on his floor, shoving aside clumps of clothes in the process. His desk lamp was switched on, casting streaks of yellow light off the bare walls. Several canvases were pushed up against the wall by his bed, cardboard boxes of clutter scattered around areas similar. The air reeked of dried paint and dirty clothes. It was strangely comforting.

He collapsed onto the comforter, his bed not as messy as the rest of his room. His pillows were stacked neatly against the wall, his blue blanket stretched across the mattress. A splotch of dried, green, paint settled in a small circle at the foot of the bed, not noticeable enough that it was bothersome, but still showed Akaashi’s own clumsiness. He wished his room was somewhere he could think clearly, but normally the longer he spent there, the more claustrophobic he felt.

There was never any noise from downstairs, almost like no one ever spoke in his house, which was a completely valid option when he thought about it. He lived at the cut-off of an apartment complex and a small neighborhood that bordered the skyline. It was a quiet row of white houses, in a quiet neighborhood, apart from the distant dog barking. 

Akaashi had no reason to feel like it was always _loud._

He hated being alone, but that’s who he was. Akaashi was _lonely_ , but that was just Akaashi, he stuck it as a personality trait because that’s what you do when the bad parts of yourself carry so deeply into the wires of your head. There were always faces around him, scattered portraits he made using his fingers or his dirtied brushes because that was the only thing that kept him sane. The portraits were messy and unlegible, but still counted. Maybe that's why he was so lonely: he sucked at making portraits. 

The pillow smelled like chemicals, which sucked, because Akaashi just washed his pillowcase. He could deal with his room smelling like chemicals, but he couldn’t deal with his pillow smelling like chemicals. Airborne asthma sounded really nice right about now.

Then there was a thump against his window.

Akaashi didn’t move.

There was another, much louder thump. This time the noise was followed by a much quieter thump.

He moved his head so it was facing the window, sheer curtains yanked across the glass. There was no movement outside, just the silhouette of a tree. It had stopped snowing, which was good, because the weather had been pretty violent lately.

Another thump. Two more. Three more.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Akaashi angrily pulled himself up, ignoring the fact that it was the middle of the night and that there could be a pimp outside his window right now. There was another less dramatic thump, not as loud like the last one had been. Akaashi tugged the curtains aside and stared down at the snow-covered grass below, only darkness stealing value.

A snowball hit his window, right in between his eyes.

Then there he was, except Akaashi didn’t recognize him at first. His hair was yanked into a yellow beanie, and his eyes matched the hat, not that Akaashi noticed.

“This is a joke,” Akaashi laughed, humorless.

He told himself he preferred the pimp.

Bokuto was greatly still unaware of being seen, two more snowballs barreling towards the glass and sliding down with watery skid marks. Akaashi unlocked the widow, slid it up, and stuck his head out, patiently waiting for the correct moment to scream his lungs off.

A snowball cut off any comments he would’ve made. Akaashi felt the impact between his eyebrows and followed with a shriek, his hands covering his head in case of further collisions. Bokuto’s face instantly morphed from pure determination to regret, the snowball he had begun to form in his hand dropping to the ground. His mouth twisted as he stared, Akaashi’s face covered by his palms.

“ _What the fuck_.”

“Akaashi, I’m so sorry- I didn’t see you open the window-”

“How do you know where I _live_? Why are you here?”

Bokuto frowned, the face morphing his whole physique, his stance becoming more tense. Akaashi decided he didn’t like it, which made him almost throw up again, because he couldn’t believe he was forming opinions about the faces Bokuto made.

“It’s your birthday, right?”

“Answer my question,” Akaashi pried, the confusion fully taking over him. He’d never mentioned anything personal to Bokuto, nonetheless his birthday.

Or his fucking address.

Bokuto scratched his chin, “Kenma told me.”

Akaashi inspected his movements, “You don’t know Kenma,” he replied, shifting further back into his room.

“Kuroo does.”

“I don’t know a Kuroo.”

Bokuto scratched his chin again, "Kuroo went over Kenma’s, like this morning, I think?” he scratched again, “He wasn’t there ‘nd his parents said he was at a friend’s birthday,” he scratched his chin _again_ , “I figured that was you. Kuroo got the address, from Kenma, who he gave to me, cause’ I asked. I wanted to come say happy birthday, but I got lost, even though I still ended up finding my way here,” Bokuto laughed, finally, and scratched his chin once more.

Akaashi blinked.

“Stop doing that,” Akaashi glared.

“Stop doing what?”

“Nothing. Why didn’t you just knock instead of throwing a snowball at my face?”

Bokuto ignored the earlier comment. Akaashi didn’t know why he mentioned his little habit, it just made the air more awkward.

“It’s almost 8:30, right? I didn’t want your parents to get mad,” Bokuto frowned again.

“So you threw snowballs at my window.”

Both of them got quiet, the snow around them capturing the absence of sound. Bokuto’s hair stuck out in small strands around the hat, as if it had its own sense of gravity. He looked relatively bundled up, definitely the type of person to take winter seriously. Akaashi watched him fidget by the tree, kicking clumps of snow around with his foot. His face was bright red from the cold and Akaashi felt the urge to hold his hands over Bokuto’s nose so that it wasn’t so irritated.

It wasn’t surprising Bokuto didn’t respond to the earlier inquiry.

“Wanna go on an _adventure?_ ” Bokuto’s eyes gleamed mischievously, if you could even call it that, his lower lip caught in between his teeth. Akaashi dropped his hands to his sides, watching Bokuto’s unsteady expression. His face was split into a smile, although his eyes still carried that same sense of uncertainty he seemed to hold like a pendant. Not that he noticed.

“Yeah,” Akaashi hesitated, “yeah, let me get my coat.”

The other blinked.

Bokuto pumped his fist, letting out a small yelp of victory, to which Akaashi shot a glare at.

“Thought it was gonna be difficult to get you to come. I feel like you hate me sometimes.”

Akaashi shrugged and didn’t respond, retreating into his room and tugging on the first coat he found on his floor. He sunk into his shoes and pulled a scarf around his neck, letting his mind make his movements instead of thinking about what he was actually doing. His pajama pants were thick and striped, the fabric shamelessly rolled up his calf because his aunt didn’t know how to get the correct sizes for things. He cracked his parent’s bedroom door open to scan the inside, quietly making sure his mother was asleep. The television downstairs was still loud throughout the house, voices from reality shows louder than Akaashi’s own most likely. The stairwell protested under his feet, soft footsteps slowly making their way to the front door.

Bokuto was already there, waiting. His nose was even brighter this time, his cheeks similar in color. Akaashi fisted his hands in the pockets of his coat so he didn’t do anything stupid.

Akaashi shut the door behind him with precision, turning the lock in tune to the click of the deadbolt. He turned to face Bokuto, who was standing there like he won something. Akaashi kind of wanted to punch him.

“You’re not wearing gloves,” Bokuto noted. Akaashi nodded and faced sideways, never looking into the yellow eyes, because you couldn’t make eye contact with Bokuto. All it did was fuel his initiative for conversation, which already wasn’t good in itself.

“Where are we going?”

“An adventure, I told you. Somewhere I take all my friends.”

“We’re not friends.”

Bokuto laughed like it was funny and tugged Akaashi by the shoulder, the street lamps illuminating his features to look much brighter. Bokuto screeched, the noise loud and grating, and it made Akaashi’s ears theoretically bleed. Bokuto offered no further explanation on the noise, only swinging his arms back and forth as he skipped along the sidewalk, watching cars pass with their headlights shining and reflecting off the stars in the sky. Akaashi wanted to scream at how domestic and _normal_ the whole thing felt.

“We’re obviously _kind of_ friends since you’re here right now. I thought I’d have to do a hell of a lot more convincing.”

Akaashi ignored the comment, “You never actually answered my question. You like to do that, don’t you?” he tilted his head towards Bokuto, the latter’s attention focused elsewhere.

“And you like pointing it out, _don’t you?_ ” Bokuto mocked, “nice pajamas, by the way.”

“ _Shut up_.”

That was how it went, hushed words pushed back and forth like they were _kind of_ having a normal conversation. The idea of sharing the same air with Bokuto made Akaashi’s hands sweat, or maybe he just had hyperhidrosis. He took his hands out of his coat pockets and swung them around, choosing to disregard the look Bokuto gave him. 

Why did he agree to this? What was the motive?

The city looked how it always did, street vendors and hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlors that projected neon signs like body mist. The streets were dusted with salt and the walks were crowded with people, body heat ambling to make the air much warmer than how it was moments before. Outside of the warmth, the stinging bite of the cold was just starting to fully razor into Akaashi’s skin, the pinch crawling up his arms like ants. The sky seemed to laugh at the scene playing below, an obvious string tied in between two boys, heavy clothing pins holding it down. There were no words transferred, it was just them and the rest of humanity.

“You know what, I think you’d really like Tetsu.”

Akaashi heaved, “Tetsu?”

“Kuroo.”

Black hair spun in quick spirals, Akaashi’s head spinning so fast around his head it could’ve sliced open skin, “No. Nope. I have no intention to meet Kuroo, _thanks.”_

“You both are like- closed off! I mean, Tets isn’t like _closed off-closed off_ or whatever, but he’s… he doesn’t like to open up a lot, I guess, which is just like _someone I know_ , and he’s just like super cool, you know? Like he vibes really easily with people, and um, he’s like all chill and stuff,” Bokuto animatedly moved his hands while he spoke, obviously excited to speak about his friend in his absence, “you can’t judge someone you’ve never met, Akaashi.”

“If I’m judging someone who’s close-friends with you, I think I have a good idea on what they’re like.”

Bokuto tossed the passive aggressive insult through his head a few times, eventually turning to Akaashi in feign offense. Akaashi felt his face start to seize up, but refused to smile. He wouldn’t give Bokuto that satisfaction. His eyes were focused on the other’s yellow ones, so much so that Akaashi almost bumped into a couple walking the opposite way, laughing and obviously tipsy. Bokuto laughed in second-hand embarrassment, which only provided Akaashi with a red face and more sweat on his palms. A small fire bloomed in the bottom of Akaashi’s stomach, one that obviously stuttered and moved with difficulty, but was still there nonetheless.

Bokuto’s laugh was annoying. 

The streets dispersed into much thinner alley-like shop corners where pedestrians wandered, the lights attracting locals and tourists both alike. Signs tipped over the roofs and past the asphalt, the tops covered in layers of snow. The footsteps they made combined into one wavelength of noise, Akaashi’s eyes on the ground again. It still felt too easy to be around Bokuto, and he hated it. He wished it felt more like the drive to go to a doctors appointment, growing anxiety and the wish to be anywhere else.

Akaashi didn’t want to be anywhere else, and it scared him so much, he wanted to shrivel up into his coat like a kiwi retracting into his furry skin. Bokuto’s presence was something he wasn’t used to, but apparently there were firsts for everything.

Akaashi was learning more about himself the longer he spent near the other boy’s crackling energy. 

Bokuto stopped so abruptly, Akaashi had to take a few steps back. His hand was on the knob of the small restaurant and then Bokuto was pushing into the dark space. It went quiet around them again. Akaashi followed in step, wiping his shoes on the carpet by the entryway. A bell rang above the door, signaling their entrance.

“Is this place even open?” Akaashi shivered in the darkness, his eyes tracking Bokuto’s shifting figure.

“Does it look open to you?”

Akaashi rolled his eyes, “Well, no shit, I was just making sure. Why are we-?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“And you never answer them.”

The area was small, but comfortable. When they had entered, a small light flickered behind the cook’s counter. It provided enough sustenance to the outside light that the space was mostly legible, Akaashi’s eyes raking over the tables, chairs, greenery and everything else that made the small cafe into what seemed to be an English majors bedtime story. The automatic light behind the counter stared back at them, waiting for both of them to move.

Bokuto spun and locked the door behind him with a key Akaashi hadn’t known the other had previously. 

“Do you-? Do you own the restau-”

“Mom does. It’s family owned.”

Akaashi suddenly felt dumb for trying to incorperate humor into the dry situation. Bokuto’s mouth had stuck into a thin line at the mention of his mother. He didn’t reiterate anything else on the topic, dropping it and grabbing Akaashi’s wrist, which he didn’t refuse. It only took a few strides to reach the other side of the cafe, a small wooden door with several locks lined up the side in constant view.

Bokuto turned toward Akaashi, strangely flushed, “You afraid of heights?” 

Akaashi shook his head, his wrist still held in between the other boy’s hands. He fought the urge to pull away. To slap his own hands onto his cheeks so he didn’t overheat.

With one swift motion, the door was open, and they were flying up the steps two at a time. The walls were bare and recently painted it seemed, the familiar scent of chemicals forming beneath Akaashi’s nostrils. There was a row of blank doors and another staircase, which they climbed just as quickly. They were attached hand-to-hand the whole time, which Akaashi perceived as Bokuto’s lack of self awareness and understanding of personal space. 

Akaashi wondered if he was dying.

The last door opened with protest, the winter air coming and smacking both boys on the foreheads. It blew Akaashi’s hair out of his face and made his ears sting, yet he only pushed forward, milling through thick snow at his feet. The coldness seeped past his Converse and into his socks, much to his discomfort. He glared at his feet.

His wrist lost the warmth and he looked back up, his eyes instantly catching the mixtures of lights and nighttime rush. His regulated body temperature was thrown out in a heap like a laundry pile as he stared, his ankles moving without much destination in mind. It wasn’t a high building, but it still brought enough length in between Akaashi and the rest of the world do he breathe without others looking at him. Bokuto was no longer by his side, a few paces back, his smile split into a shit-faced grin. There were so many different palettes placed around both of them, each pastel and neon mixing together in swirls and pieces of imagery that was just too heavy for the mind to comprehend.

Akaashi licked the snow off his top lip, blinking to regain consciousness. 

“You look scared,” Bokuto mumbled, taking a seat a few feet from the edge of the roof, his legs crossing beneath him. Akaashi followed suit, ignoring the wetness seep into his pajamas when he sat on the snow. He didn’t notice himself leaning against Bokuto’s arm, and Bokuto didn’t mention it. The moment was too surreal.

“I’m not. It’s just overwhelming, I’ve never been this high up.”

“It’s not even that far up,” Bokuto spoke softly, nudging Akaashi’s knee with his own, “my other friends really like it up here, so I thought I’d show you. And it’s your birthday and all that,” Bokuto scratched his chin and leaned back, letting his gloves protect his fingers from the snow. His elbows bent as he stared up into the sky, the tips of buildings not too far in the distance.

“I wanna paint it.”

Bokuto looked a little startled at the comment, “Oh. That’s cool.”

Akaashi blinked when he realized he’d spoken, his back sticking straight up and his eyes blowing wide, “I mean, that’s like- a weird thing to say, sorry. I just mean it’s very colorful here. I don’t paint landscapes very often. _God,_ I’m sorry.”

Bokuto was giggling into his hand, pushing his shoulder into Akaashis, who very soon became aware of their closeness. He didn’t have the energy to move away, he convinced himself. The warmth against his skin was also pleasant.

“I feel like this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk, you know, clearly. You could always come back here, with your paints and stuff. I wouldn’t mind.”

Akaashi let the intent behind the words roll off his shoulders, “Really?”

Bokuto’s eyes flashed, and he suddenly understood.

“Only if you draw _me_ ,” he pointed to himself, lifting his fist into the air, “and you admit we’re friends!”

Akaashi gaped at him, his fingers going numb from the ice below him. 

“You’re manic,” Akaashi replied bumping his _friends_ shoulder and staring back up at the explosions of color around them.

Bokuto’s face lit up and Akaashi didn’t know if it was from the lights around him, or his own mind twisting the happiness on his face and turning it into something completely different. Bokuto looked carefree in that moment, a major contrast to how he looked when Akaashi had mentioned his family, or when Akaashi told him the first time they weren’t friends.

He figured Bokuto thought of it as some sort of inside joke now.

“I guess we’re kinda friends.”

Bokuto took it as an answer and collapsed on top of Akaashi, wrapping his arms so tightly around his midsection (as far as he could in their seated position), to which Akaashi found himself snickering at. He didn’t know why, because it wasn’t funny, and he most definitely did not return the spontaneous hug. It was just absurd. Maybe he just liked the idea of someone being that delighted to be friends with him.

Again, with no understanding of personal space. Akaashi had the inkling, absolutely horrific may he add, thought that he might have to get used to Bokuto’s personal-bubble-popping issue.

Akaashi grimaced at the thought, allowing Bokuto to lift himself back off him. He was smiling like an idiot, and it was infectious apparently because Akaashi was smiling too.

“So I can draw dicks on your shoes now?”

“Most definitely not,” Akaashi sharply returned.

There was a groan, then another laugh in the darkness. It was oddly quiet on the roof, but maybe it was just the blood slowly seeping into Akaashi’s ears by the bucket. He felt disengaged after the sudden glomp, his heart only now beginning to slow down its pace.

“I’m not used to it.”

“Not used to what?” Bokuto’s reply came instantly, his head tilting at the other boy in question, his eyes running over his hands habitually digging small divots into the snow.

“God, this is gonna sound so pathetic, if you laugh I’ll throw you over the edge,” Akaashi quietly threatened, expecting a reaction. 

_What was he saying?_

Bokuto just blinked, his mouth taut.

“I don’t like having friends. Or,” Akaashi used his fingers as quotations, “‘ _classifying’_ others as friends. I don’t really… do that,” he finished, staring into yellow eyes like he actually cared about what Bokuto thought.

He did.

“What about Kenma? Or that kid you were sitting with, down by the river, you know the one-”

“They’re just _people_. They both understand that, which is why I still hang out with them, I guess. Kenma has always just been there, and Oikawa is like me, in a sense. We don’t like to attach ourselves to others, it’s like an agreement,” Akaashi thumbed the snow beneath him, digging his feet into the cement of the floor beneath them. God, he really _did_ sound pathetic. Saying something like that out loud only made the gremlin on his shoulder whisper louder, assuring him that Bokuto would probably get up and walk back downstairs and leave Akaashi up there to freeze to death. He felt shameful for some reason, he’d never spoken about this to anyone, especially not to the person Akaashi would think about and feel the need to instantly self destruct.

Akaashi sometimes forgot Bokuto broke his nose for him. Someone he didn’t know, nonetheless someone younger than him.

He kept Bokuto in a small folder in his mind he saved for people like him, although he’d never experienced anyone like Bokuto in the past. He didn’t know what to label the folder yet, although he was beginning to get an idea.

There was silence between them, then Bokuto was there, like a flashlight in a dark room, blinking into Akaashi’s vision. Bokuto moved to sit in front of him so that they were facing each other, bright greens and pinks from the background forming a silhouette around him. His hat was falling into his eyes and Akaashi dug his hands into the pockets of his coat to stop himself from fixing it. The sweat residue on Akaashi’s hands was making itself known again.

“Why would I laugh at that?”

Akaashi flinched at the mild offense laced in his voice.

Bokuto shifted, his knuckle rapping on the pike of Akaashi’s knee, “That’s not funny, that’s just your thing. Everyone has a thing like that, you know, something that fucks with their heads all weird and makes them think everyone hates em’ or something.”

Akaashi stared at him like he was the trees that supplied the earth oxygen.

“That day… you know, the day I broke my nose. I don’t know why I did it. Honest to God, I’m not that nice of a person-”

“Yes, _you are_ , shut up, _shut up,_ you are so nice Bokuto,” Akaashi replied sternly, training his eyes into the sun, moon, and stars in one person. He didn’t know what he was saying.

Bokuto lifted his mouth slightly, “You don’t have to be held accountable for what I did. It was my stupid choice. You don’t have to think I’m nice.”

Akaashi sat there in awe, because Bokuto was right, and he hated it. He was taken aback by the sudden change in maturity, Bokuto’s face now guarded.

“I’ve never done that for anyone before. I don’t know why I did it for you, not to sound like a total jackass, but it’s true. I just felt like doing it. Even Kuroo was weirded out.”

“I wish you would’ve just stayed out of it,” Akaashi let the words fall out before he could stop himself.

Bokuto’s eyes flashed with something similar to hurt, which made Akaashi’s body clench and his blood run cold. 

“But, I guess it can’t be reversed. And we’re friends now, anyway, so,” Akaashi smirked up at him, watching Bokuto’s face turn into the opposite of defeat. His expression was hidden behind the hat, snow starting fall in small flakes of ice. It stuck to the fabric of their clothing and weaved itself into Akaashi’s hair.

He felt sick, but a good type of sick. He didn’t know how to explain it.

Akaashi wondered if Bokuto would be a good carpenter since he was so good at breaking down walls. Bokuto seemed to hold the entire universe in his eyes. Akaashi had never met anyone who looked like that.


	4. the pros and cons of UV radiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can I see your drawings?”
> 
> Akaashi’s felt his whole body heat up, his hand quickly wrapping itself around the item in front of him protectively, “Definitely not. No. Never.”
> 
> “You draw bad stuff?” Bokuto asked, leaning farther into Akaashi’s shoulder. Akaashi wondered if it would be a good time to throw himself out of the window with pretty curtains.
> 
> “Just you,” He replied before he could think about what he was saying. Not that he could think.

The following summer was a time capsule Akaashi wishes he could have saved for the substandard parts of his life. Something he knows his future self would’ve wanted to look back on, specifically because every moment felt like something Akaashi knew he didn’t deserve to feel. It was both equally prodigious and terrifying.

Akaashi, being the non-committal person he was, kept Bokuto at a safe distance from his own issues, yet still allowed Bokuto’s prickly self to stab into his skin every so often. The time they’d spent on the roof was short but sweet, evolution between friends, and definitely something sacred Akaashi felt as though he didn’t need to reveal to others to get validation for. He continued to meet Oikawa at the river by the bridge every Sunday, he skipped rocks, he trapped fireflies in mason jars with Kenma, and overall kept the same yearly routine he followed during the warm months. 

Bokuto measled his way in a bit too easily, and because Akaashi didn’t like losing, he gave him a pretty difficult time. 

The remainder of school from December onward carried on similar to how it was before he’d known Bokuto, it had passed like stale biscuits on rainy mornings. Bokuto was never around, which had never bothered Akaashi in the past, up until he actually began to search for the mass of atrocious hair bouncing up and down the halls. He’d seen Bokuto at a schoolwide assembly after a month of no communication on both ends, among a group of his friends Akaashi supposed, all looking equally delinquent.

“Which one is Kuroo?” Akaashi had asked absentmindedly, tapping his feet on the floor in tune to the other several hundred students who were stood around them. Kenma’s eyes moved from his phone to Bokuto’s group across the gymnasium, the shorter boy’s pointer finger angling over to some kid with black fringe over half his forehead. 

Akaashi had stared at the floor for the rest of the assembly attempting to piece together what Bokuto’s friends ate, not that he’d ever admit that.

Springtime was similar, although Bokuto’s frequency through the hallways had eerily picked up slowly but surely. More than once they had both seen each other idling around the halls, more than once had they caught each other staring, and more than once had Kenma caught Akaashi’s smile and had to cover his laugh with his fist at the outrageousness.

Once had Akaashi caught himself and quickly sobered up, drawing his expression tight, “Shut up.”

Kenma just smirked like usual, picking at his thumbnail, “I didn’t say anything.”

When July came and school was let out, their existent bond expanded dramatically. Bokuto’s weekly visits consisted of several blunt objects being projected at Akaashi’s window, just for the bitch to ask if they could go get ice cream. Bokuto took him places just because he _felt_ like it, nothing more than that. Akaashi felt like chopping off his wrist to preserve the heat from Bokuto’s hand since it was there so often.

Akaashi didn’t mind. He enjoyed Bokuto when he wasn’t supplying migraines like a factory worker.

The roof of the cafe Bokuto’s family owned was a place Akaashi quickly found himself infatuated with. Bokuto normally was there with him, it was his living space after all, with a blanket wrapped around himself like a cape, swinging in the early August wind. Surprisingly, Akaashi’s time spent there was as productive as he’d hoped, the colors from his brushes flowing naturally from his hands as Bokuto watched in awe. Akaashi more than once had asked Bokuto if he was feeling ill from not speaking for such lengthy amounts of time, to which he responded with jabs to Akaashi’s ribs.

The clock seemed to stop keeping track of time. His days were either sleeping until it became socially acceptable to call himself nocturnal, sketching the same thing over and over by the river, listening to his mother rant about her job, or Bokuto. Being on the roof of the cafe became more of a carnal desire rather than somewhere Akaashi stayed in his free time to detox. Several times had he waltzed into the cafe Bokuto-free, waving to Bokuto’s grandmother behind the counter out of politeness, a spring in his step as he stalked up the few flights of stairs. His own house had a roof, thought it was slanted, and would likely result in several broken bones, or in a perfect world, death.

It was early in the morning, just after 10:00. The house was soft and warm, and his eyes felt heavy even if he’d sustained twelve hours or so the night before. There were natural bags under his eyes, he was sure, and his hair was greasy, the ends curled down the side of his neck. Akaashi’s bare feet nudged at the flooring under the table where he sat, sunlight wiggling through the blinds and onto the kitchen floor.

No one spoke. Akaashi scratched his knee, a scab tearing underneath his ring finger. He flicked the remains somewhere unknown. His mother thumbed through articles on her phone, slouched over the dining table. She looked much calmer than usual, her normal updo untangled into thick sections down her back and over her shoulders. There was no apron or diner smell, there was just a woman who happened to resemble Akaashi physically. She bit down on one of her fingernails.

Akaashi force fed himself more cereal just so he had something to do.

“How’s Kenma?”

“Fine,” he replied through a mouthful of almond milk. The spoon clattered back into the bowl. 

“That’s good.”

Akaashi nodded, picking at the side of the table, eyeing his mother. Her face was still glued to the device in her hand. Akaashi felt the urge to snatch it and toss it out the window, just because he wanted to, not because he wanted the attention.

“I wanna move to Tokyo,” the world sounded funny in his mouth.

That made her look up, “Tokyo?”

He nodded, the movement stiff. He flicked his forehead to the side to get rid of the small strand of rouge hair that had fallen into his eyes.

“Why Tokyo? Kinda far, don’t you think?”

_That’s the point._

“I don't know. They have culture.”

Akaashi’s mother looked baffled, the front of her phone meeting the table surface, “Sendai has culture.”

“Not enough.”

They stared at each other, the air conditioner and their steady breaths supplying background noise. Akaashi thought it was pretty noisy even if there wasn’t much for the ear to grab onto.

“Aren’t you a little young to be making that decision?”

Akaashi turned his head back down, inhaling another mouthful, “I wanna go to school there. Tooru’s older brother goes to one of the schools in Shinjuku, Fukurodani, I think. The people there look really cool, they color their hair and everything. His brother’s studying Native American art history, its cool, he says it's a nice place,” he finished the sentence with another bite of the sugary substance, the pillars of the chair scraping the wood as he slid backwards to stand up. His thighs peeled away from the seat, red spots forming where his sweat shorts had ridden up.

“That’s a rich-people school. We’re not rich people,” she responded with gradual thickness in her voice, although he didn’t know why.

“You’re such a character for your age, you know? You’re so talented and _creative_ , but you… might grow out of it. You evolve as a human, you get me?” she continued, watching as Akaashi quietly got up and dipped his bowl into the sink, running water over the surface. He let the words emulsify into his head before responding, keeping his back turned. 

“Grow out of what?” he questioned blankly.

His mother smiled softly and the expression reminded Akaashi of Tooru momentarily. The smile didn’t look genuine.

“You grow as a person. Your hobbies change, your tastes change, everything changes. You can’t be sure that’s what you want to pursue, especially when you have such a bright future ahead of you. You could do law, or maybe go into the medical field. A psychiatrist, maybe.”

Akaashi continued to pour soap onto the porcelain to keep himself from throwing it at his mother's head. 

“And you know, eventually you'll grow out of whatever this thing is you’re going through.”

Akaashi froze, the chill from the water seeping into his skin like a doused paper towel. He didn’t like the way her voice patronized him, except the mood seemed to change, as though she was no longer speaking of him pursuing further education in artistry. She had moved onto something else, something much deeper that she’d dug out of the lowest caverns of his mind.

Did she know? She couldn’t know. He’d never shown any signs of it, had he? It wasn’t really something he could show signs of.

“But that’s just a given. I was a lot like you, I wasn’t really into staying in one place. I had a lot of aspirations as a kid.”

Akaashi spun around, watching her face morph from patience to amusement, “And what? You dropped it all for me because you got knocked up, or something? Is that the whole point of this, aren’t you supposed to tell me I should chase my dreams or some bullshit like that?” His voice was dangerously flat, the only visible sign of discomfort being the small crescents embedded into his palms from his fingernails.

Her face was funny and he wishes he could have painted it so it would’ve been reserved in time. Neither of them made any effort to move until Akaashi tugged at his sleeve and made a run for it, his head empty of anger for the day. He felt satisfied with her reaction, leaving her there stationary with her _Pulp Fiction_ t-shirt and the cereal box forgotten on the tablecloth. The days he could fight back were nice, days were his father worked early at his company so he wasn’t there to defend her honor. 

She probably wouldn’t tell his father what happened. She never did.

When Akaashi reached his room, he slammed his door off the hinges and laughed maniacally into his hands, sighing heavily once the initial adrenaline wore off. It was sad that these were the things that got him off. 

There was a pebble hitting his window and Akaashi almost threw himself out of it from the moment he saw Bokuto at the other end. He shoved the window open, now permanently unlocked for easier access, and stuck his head out, a grin gracing his mouth. The sun pierced Bokuto’s dark hair, the heat sticking to his scalp and burning the edges. He was stood tall underneath the tree with a blue shirt and rolled up khakis, his white converse stained yellow. There were two sweat stains present underneath his armpits.

“That was quicker than usual.”

“I’m in a good mood,” Akaashi responded, retreating from the window momentarily to retrieve his shoes. He tripped over a clump of clothing in his way, his side hitting the floor with a thump. He swore loudly and quickly tied his shoes, pulling the drawstring around his shorts into a knot. It was hasty and Akaashi didn’t know why he was rushing, Bokuto would wait as long as he needed to, even if he was sweating his skin off. He tucked the front of his shirt into his shorts to keep it from sagging and swung his backpack over his shoulders, it resting at the bottom of his back.

“Just take your time in there while I die of heatstroke,” Bokuto called up through cupped hands, stepping away from the tree’s trunk. Akaashi flashed him a very impolite gesture and pulled the window shut.

His mother was no longer in the kitchen, the cereal box still present on the tabletop. Akaashi hopped down the stairs two at a time, peering over the banister to glance into the living room. The house was quiet, the sounds of summer eating its way in through open windows, filtering through the thick mist of the house. It was sunny enough to light up the entirety of the first floor, curtains pulled aside in each room to leech the light from outside. It was also warm, alarmingly warm, like there was no other air besides Akaashi’s own oxygen leaving his lungs.

Bokuto was fidgeting with the edge of his shirt when Akaashi opened the front door, their eyes meeting with soft smiles. With no words transpired, they bumped next to each other on the sidewalk, small pebbles crunching underneath their feet.

“So… what happened?”

Akaashi looked up in question, watching Bokuto avoid the cracks in the cement, “I pissed off my mom.”

Bokuto glanced up at that, kicking a stray rock, “And that’s a good thing?”

Akaashi contemplated telling Bokuto about her; how she put up a front of being the pillar their family needed to stay together, although she made no real adjustments to her parenting, which only formed the 463 mile distance between Akaashi and every other person he’s ever met. He contemplated telling Bokuto about how his home sometimes feels like the product of an arranged marriage, even if the photos of his parents hung on the wall by the stairwell spoke differently.

“She thinks she’s amazing at everything she does. She acts like nothing bothers her. That makes me mad, so I like to poke her until she... breaks, I guess,” Akaashi admitted.

Bokuto got quiet.

“At least your mom loves you,” he said, squinting at the sky, a dry smile playing on his face. Akaashi thought the sunlight looked dimmer in that moment.

He glanced up as well, clear blue with no clouds, and scratched his chin, “I guess there’s something like that in there. She never tells me,” Akaashi replied, oblivious to the meaning behind what Bokuto had said.

“And your dad?”

“Why are we talking about my family?”

“You started it.”

Akaashi sighed, hopping up onto the elevated curb. He flung both his arms out to keep his balance, Bokuto following in suit behind him. A small giggle left the dark haired boy’s mouth when he began to tilt, little mumbles of encouragements leaving his mouth. Akaashi glanced behind him and caught his eye, the yellow less vibrant than usual. He looked tired.

“My dad is like… not strict, just annoying. Him and my mom don’t really-” Akaashi put both his fingertips together to indicate two sides of a magnet not attracting, “go together. They don’t fight or anything, but they never kiss, or hug, or do any of that gross shit. You know, normal parent stuff. Sometimes I feel like they don’t love each other. I don’t think I’d mind if they got divorced. I’d probably live with my dad in the city, or something,” Akaashi finished, taking a sharp corner and nearly tripping over a flower pot in the process.

“What about you?” Akaashi turned his head, staring at Bokuto’s slouched figure. He was observing his feet intently, making the effort not to trip.

“You never tell me anything, Akaashi. Tell me more!” he pushed, obviously trying to avoid the topic.

Akaashi wondered momentarily if he was being ignorant for acting like he’d rather his parents split; Bokuto obviously had pretty strong feelings over his own home situation. He decided to be more careful in his word choice.

“Well, my dad’s a salaryman. My mom works at an izakaya, down by the apartments on 83. It’s nothing special.”

Bokuto nodded along as the other spoke, his voice going soft, “My grandparents moved in with me and my mom when my dad got arrested,” he mumbled.

Akaashi twirled, almost falling off the edge of the curb, “Your dads in _jail_?”

Bokuto shrugged, confused as to why Akaashi looked so surprised.

“I mean- it’s not, like, weird, or anything, but… what’d he do?”

Bokuto tilted his head towards the sky at the comment, taking a few steps ahead of Akaashi. He shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at more rocks, avoiding any face-to-eye contact. Bokuto stopped in front of a tiny convenience store, vending machines lined up along the outside. The roof had a sign with messy lettering and a minimalist exterior.

Bokuto thumbed towards the store, “Want anything?”

Akaashi shook his head, following Bokuto inside. The atmosphere was confining, a tiny bell ringing upon their entrance. The inside was barren, save for the man behind the counter smoking. Lines of products came into central view and Bokuto wandered down one of the aisles like he knew where he was going, like he knew the store inside and out. Akaashi eyed the rows of snacks, Bokuto eventually settling on a bag of corn chips. Akaashi retrieved the same one, contrary to the earlier refusal.

“So, is that why you’re a delinquent?” Akaashi asked, bearing a teasing smile.

Bokuto spun around, hurt lined in the confines of his face, “You’re kind of being an ass.”

Akaashi blinked.

“Thats a really- I don’t know, assholey thing to say. What the fuck does that even mean?” his face was flushed from the heat, Akaashi hoped.

“You started it.”

With an angry sigh, Bokuto turned back around and started tossing the bag of chips from one hand to the other. They approached the cashier, the man ringing up both their items, and passing them back, keeping his eyes occupied on a magazine perched on his knee. He dug a few coins out of his pockets and handed them to the man, all the while ignoring Akaashi. 

Once outside the store, Bokuto stood dead in his tracks, facing Akaashi like he’d committed identity theft. Akaashi still had whiplash from the sudden change in tone. 

“You’re so fucking immature sometimes.”

Akaashi groaned, shoveling his snack into his mouth, the saltiness only adding to his own internal conflict, “I’m not immature, I’m more mature than you, you could’ve just said you didn’t want to talk about it. What died up your ass?”

“ _I’m more mature than you,’_ yeah right, tough shit. All you do is complain about everything, when you don’t even have it that bad. I bet you’ve never even _kissed_ anyone,” Bokuto returned flatly, as if the act of sharing spit with someone sent your levels of maturity through the roof.

“And you have?”

“Of course I have! I even had a girlfriend for awhile. Hana-chan from 2-A.”

Akaashi rolled his eyes into his head, “I don’t know who that is.”

Bokuto was only proving his point. He wondered if this was the same Bokuto who seemed to be understanding of his own circumstances on the roof. The same Bokuto who seemed like he wouldn’t judge Akaashi for way he did things, like everyone else seemed to.

This was not the same person.

“Whatever. I don’t wanna hear it,” Bokuto mumbled the last part, his back turned, his legs carrying him far past the convenience store.

Akaashi followed him, his sneakers squeaking. Bokuto kept his head sideways. His face was drawn tight and very non-Bokuto-like, his mouth stiff.

Akaashi decided he didn't like that face on Bokuto. He tossed the empty chip bag into the street, Bokuto following in action.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

It most definitely was not fine. Akaashi felt the anger radiating off of the other boy, although it didn’t really feel like anger, more like discomfort. He felt disgusting, like he’d dipped his feet into mud and spread them through clean sheets. He hated how he cared, he never cared about anyone’s feelings, so why did he now? In the middle of a busy street of all places, groups of people passing by two kids fighting like garbage cats.

“It was dumb to say. I’m sorry, really, I was just kidding-”

Bokuto spun around and sunk his fingernails into Akaashi’s shoulders, his backpack taking the majority of the weight, “Promise you wont bring it up again?”

Akaashi sunk into his own neck, extra skin forming underneath his chin, “Yeah. Of course, I wasn’t thinking-”

“Alright! Then it’s settled,” Bokuto clapped his hands back together, his mouth curving upwards. His expression changed so suddenly Akaashi was convinced momentarily that the previous events hadn’t happened at all, that it was a dream, that he’d blacked out. Bokuto’s demeanor brightened, his posture straightened, and his arms swung by his sides. Akaashi kept his distance beside him, glancing at his face every so often to make sure Bokuto wasn’t fucking with him.

“Can you draw me now?”

Akaashi blinked, answering with a sound of question, something that sounded like ‘huh?’ but not really.

“You promised, remember? On the roof. You said you’d draw me,” Bokuto tilted his head to the sky, his hands now buried in the pockets of his pants. He looked serene, mind completely blank.

At first, Akaashi was baffled, because he’d never seen someone switch moods that quickly. He wanted to apologize again, he’d seen how it bothered Bokuto and it wasn’t worth wasting energy with unnecessary conflict. It could’ve been a front, he told himself, but Bokuto didn’t seem like someone to put up a front.

Then again, neither did Akaashi, and his entire demeanor was a front around Bokuto, he supposed.

“I can,” Akaashi mumbled.

Bokuto smiled softly, “Good.”

The trek to the cafe was a similar route they’d taken many times before, Bokuto in front, humming along to some foreign song, Akaashi behind him, a small smile present on his face that he’d never admit to. There was a homeless man who sat by one of the public parks they passed, a friendly man who smoked too much and had a cute dog who slept by his feet. He normally offered Bokuto a cigarette directly out of the pack, to which he sometimes refused, sometimes accepted, and Akaashi would scrunch his nose in disgust. The man would smile, offer to light it, and they’d be on their way again. 

Akaashi assumed this is what friends did. He never went out with Kenma, he never saw Oikawa outside of the ‘calm place’, and his normal routine over summer was to sit inside and hope the sun from the outside wouldn’t reach his skin. 

The subtle burn on his cheeks reminded him that he didn’t really care. 

The portraits that sat against his wall became more sparse, his bed became messier in his haste to continuously humor Bokuto, and his charcoal pencils started breaking in their use. Bokuto’s hair required several layers of different shades, all sticking up. Several hours had been spent over his bathroom sink getting rid of the residue on his fingers, his fingertips permanently stained black from the smearing.

Akaashi refused to mention he drew Bokuto. It was like scribbling your crush's name in a diary, although there was no correlation besides the humiliation aspect of it.

No correlation. None.

Bokuto shoved the cafe door open, its inside busy with customers. It being midday, there was no rest for the waiters, black clad feet scurrying from one end to the other. The bull rung and a tall woman Akaashi didn’t recognize stood behind the counter, her mouth stretching into what was likely a well-practiced smile used strictly for customer service.

“Welcome to-”

Bokuto waved his hand and the woman quieted, a sigh leaving her lips. She moved her attention to something behind the counter, both her palms coming up to accompany her chin.

Akaashi tilted his head in question towards Bokuto, who obviously ignored it.

The stairs were still cold, Akaashi noted. When Bokuto had tugged open the backdoor and took the steps two at a time, the rush of cold air had swung Akaashi’s hair back into his forehead, slapping the sweat away from his face. It was the middle of a pretty gnarly heat wave making its way through Sendai, plowing through the city like a storm. 

Bokuto stopped by one of the doors on the second floor, to which Akaashi made an obvious sound of skepticism to. Both boys made a silent transaction of words via their eyes, Bokuto’s hand hovering over the metal handle.

“It’s too hot up there. Also, your cheeks are burned. And I’m thirsty,” the yellow eyes quietly pleaded, his fingers curving the handle downwards.

Akaashi’s expression visibly dropped, because yes, he was thirsty and his face hurt, but the idea of silently staring at Bokuto on the roof for a few hours seemed far more compelling than developing skin cancer.

“It’s fine, it doesn’t even hurt,” Akaashi slapped his hands to his cheeks to prove his point, which made his eyes prick. He didn’t let any sign of pain visibly show.

Bokuto stared dubiously, a laugh escaping him soon after.

“Just come on. We can go up after the sun goes down, it’s supposed to get cool tonight.”

The door was open and Akaashi debated being stubborn; he could go to the roof anyway, it wasn’t like Bokuto cared, but his cheeks also really _fucking_ hurt.

He reluctantly followed, the smell of cigarette smoke instantly hitting his nostrils like a skunk shitting sulfur.

“ _God,_ does your whole family smoke?” Akaashi swiped his hands through the air a few times as if that would clear the smell. Bokuto nodded nonchalantly, leading them both down a small hallway and into one of the rooms that had a very clear ‘ _keep out_ ’ sign taped to the front. After swiftly entering, he swung himself onto his bed, hitting his back against the tousled covers and letting out a sigh of contentment while Akaashi stood in the doorway.

The room was heavily minimalist and not as messy as Akaashi would’ve thought Bokuto’s room would’ve been, considering his overall messy demeanor. It looked more like a dorm-room rather than a bedroom, a white bed pushed up against one wall with a desk on the other and a few shelves in between. His walls were mainly barren save for the few photographs stuck into the wall by thumbtacks and the ripped magazine pages hanging above the desk. The room was bright with sunlight, a window directly beside the bed shielded by two white curtains.

Akaashi took a seat in the desk chair, pulling his backpack up onto his lap and digging his sketchbook out.

Bokuto hopped out of his seated position and stared, uncomfortably so. Akaashi looked up so he was facing him, dropping his backpack onto the side of the chair. 

“Is it okay if I sit here-”

“Wait here,” Bokuto jumped up, interrupting Akaashi mid-sentence, and quickly darted out of the room. Akaashi produced a sound of agreement and dug a pencil and sharpie out of his backpack, setting them both on the flat space of the desk. He stared down at the sketchbook, the front still fairly new from when his mother had bought it for him, and flipped open to one of the empty pages in the back.

He surprised himself with how many times Bokuto’s face popped up throughout the scribbles and messy sketches. It made him want to giggle, which was disgusting.

“I'm gonna touch your face now,” Bokuto announced once he reentered the room, a suspicious bottle of green liquid bouncing from his left hand to the right. Akaashi turned and read the label, ‘ _Aloe Vera_ ’, and suddenly understood what was about to happen. He reached for the bottle as Bokuto turned the little knob on the top, discarding the cap onto his sheets. His mischievous laughs sounded something similar to a villain in an animation. Akaash’s grabby hands reached out for the bottle as Bokuto held it above his head, their small height difference major in comparison.

“You're a piece of _shit-_ ”

“I just wanna help! I used to get really bad burns on my elbows when I was a kid, I know what I’m doing Akaashi,” Bokuto smiled down at him, standing on his toes to reach his own maximum height.

Akaashi defeatedly slumped into the desk chair, his arms crossed defiantly like a child. Bokuto stood above him and spread the substance over his fingertips, carefully tracing the liquid over Akaashi’s cheekbones and between the space between his eyebrows. His fingers were soft and comforting, his eyes surprisingly focused for such a small task.

No matter how many times he’d sat picking dead skin off his sunburns, in that moment, Akaashi had never been more thankful for the sun and its UV radiation. 

Bokuto stepped back, “You know Miya? He plays soccer.”

Akaashi stared at the ground, too scared to speak in fear of saying something stupid about Bokuto’s soft hands. Also, as a way of boycott.

“Well, he’s gonna be a second year next semester, like you. One of Kuroo’s friends, Daishou, said he got a girlfriend in high school already. Personally, I think that’s a bit weird, but I guess we all have our tastes,” Bokuto spoke as he retrieved the cap for the aloe vera and set the bottle on his nightstand. He kicked his shoes off onto the other side of the room, plopping back on to the bed.

He stared directly into Akaashi’s eyes as the liquid settled into his skin, a thick layer still present. Akaashi’s face felt soggy, yet moisturized.

“He’s got a twin, Osamu, I think. Fun bedroom trick, I admire it.”

Akaashi refused to acknowledge the smile that was creeping up onto his own face. It hurt trying to keep it tied down.

“Daishou said he’s got a pretty loud mouth,” Bokuto watched with crossed arms, analyzing Akaashi for a reaction, “I heard he got a big dick.”

Bokuto’s voice was so flat, so devoid of emotion, Akaashi couldn’t help the guffaw that left his body, tumbling over in laughter, “ _Bokuto._ ”

He was right there with Akaashi, laughing along at his silent victory, “That’s just what I _heard_ , okay, I’m the messenger,” Bokuto responded through giggles, rolling over onto his side. 

It felt nice, even if Akaashi would’ve never found such a thing funny in the past. The laughter part of it was nice, the noise echoing through the bedroom and into the halls and out into the street and past the sun and stars. Bokuto was the landline that held them together, Akaashi decided, staring at his bright form, a heavy competitor to the sun.

Akaashi figured it was a good time to bring it up, “I’m sorry about calling you a delinquent.”

Bokuto looked taken aback suddenly, his eyes crinkling at the corners, “You promised not to bring it up.”

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to say I’m sorry that’s all, we don’t have to talk about it again,” Akaashi replied, sinking further into the chair. He pulled his knees up to his chest and turned the chair so he was facing away from Bokuto, lifting up his pencil like he was going to do something with it. He started scribbling little lines in the shape of a head to fill the quiet space.

“You said you had a girlfriend?”

Bokuto laughed, the sound pleasant and airy, “Yep. We stuck for a few months my first year, but she dropped me for Kai.”

“I don’t know who any of these people are,” Akaashi noted to no one in particular, blaming his lack of knowledge on the age difference.

Bokuto didn’t respond at first, his stature stiff in Akaashi’s peripherals. Bokuto pushed himself off the bed and into the plush carpet below, draping himself over Akaashi’s shoulders. He peered down onto what was the start of two eyes and a mouth. 

Akaashi still hadn’t registered the proximity.

“Can I see your drawings?”

Akaashi’s felt his whole body heat up, his hand quickly wrapping itself around the item in front of him protectively, “Definitely not. No. Never.”

“You draw bad stuff?” Bokuto added, leaning farther into Akaashi’s shoulder. Akaashi wondered if it would be a good time to throw himself out of the window with pretty curtains.

“Just you,” he replied before he could think about what he was saying. Not that he could think.

Bokuto laughed into his neck, unaware of the obvious effect it had. Akaashi had to teach himself to breathe again. He peeled himself off and threw his body back onto the bed, the hinges squeaking underneath. Bokuto eyed the sketchpad like it was a source of income, tossing his feet back and forth over the bed frame. His pants had rolled down from their original height, the fabric bunching at his ankles. Akaashi sideyed him, sneaking glances whenever Bokuto’s focus was trapped elsewhere. 

“That’s gonna be me, right? Do you have to look at me while you’re doing it?”

_No._

“Yeah.”


	5. shoe strings and the nefarious miya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a split second, it almost felt like biking to find your best friend, in your pajamas, in the middle of March, in below freezing temperatures, at 1:00 in the morning, was a normal thing people just did for fun. Akaashi might've regretted it, he asked himself a few times if Bokuto was even worth it, and it was until he heard the broken voice of the devil on the other line that he realized that yes, it was completely and utterly worth it.

There was never anything there, his mind was always running at full speed, but still remained blank. Akaashi had set limits for himself, a web formed out of the crumbs of emotion slowly deteriorating in his brain. It was something he prided himself in, something that took away the stress from his own irrational thoughts and allowed him to think clearly. That’s why he painted, that’s why the wall underneath his bed frame was filled with led marks, because he had to do _something_ to keep himself busy.

It changed him as a person, and he knew that. Others around him noticed the difference quicker than he did, Akaashi smiled more, his hands were always stained with the residue of some creative instrument because he forgot to clean them, there were bags under his eyes from not sleeping. His mind wasn’t occupied with anything else except _him_ , it was always his stupid hair, his stupid messy smile, and the way his hands were much softer than Akaashi had expected. The way he managed to smell like citrus and smoke at the same time.

For a long time, Akaashi assumed his threads of attraction had just gone wiry. Not because he found one gender more attractive than the other, but because he’d never had a deep rooted crush on someone until now. Oikawa had mentioned the few girls in his grade he found cute, he’d even mentioned a boy who played volleyball with him, he’d mentioned all the little love letters or the subtle flirting, but that idea never really struck a chord in Akaashi. Having crushes were silly and unnecessary, like showering twice in one day. He hoped that the first time he fell in love with someone, it’d be the last time. 

Akaashi never thought Bokuto would be the key to unlocking that certain insecurity. It was a terrifying conclusion, one that had Akaashi aimlessly wandering about his house until his mother kicked him out because she’d never seen him in such a state.

Truthfully, he didn’t like thinking about Bokuto. The whole idea of him was an issue in itself, Akaashi told himself too many times that the emotions slowly building up his spine and into his brain were less of infatuation and more curiosity; he’d never felt this way before, it was natural for his immune system to feel the effects. Maybe his body would reject his own feelings and go into anaphylactic shock, like he was allergic to Bokuto’s energy.

Everything that had been made up inside him had broken into tiny pieces for Bokuto to clean up. In Akaashi’s mind, the pieces were likely to be left forgotten until further notice.

It was March. Akaashi was thirteen.

Spring was difficult. His calves ached from pedaling, which was strange, because biking was his main form of transportation. His backpack was heavy, the fabric sagging due to the added weight of textbooks and other school supplies alike. The street was alight in different shades of blues and yellows to accomodate the time, about a half hour after four. The sidewalk was mainly devoid of people and his club didn’t start until five, so he took his time enjoying the solitude. He took the turn onto the bridge opposite the way of his school, a force of habit because of how often he went to see Oikawa, and quickly adjusted his speed so he wouldn’t accidentally hit anyone if his attention was stolen from him.

The bridge was a great vantage point, Akaashi thought. The railings were a light blue with darker waves lining the sides as a blockage. The right side peaked off into apartment buildings and the dark water below, a visualization of the outskirts of the city. The opposite side, depending on where u stood, either blanked directly into a university track field, or it looked out onto mountains, greenery, and more lines of houses. He had to cross the bridge almost everyday to get to his main destinations, yet it still remained a nice breakaway point.

Once Akaashi exited the bridge, a row of buildings sprang up and folded around him like a dome, the March sun reflecting off the windows and embedding itself into his skin. Soft music played through his earbuds, accentuating his mood and giving him small bits of comic relief for what was a fairly dull day. 

His second year was passing pretty quickly. Bits and pieces stuck out in memory fragments, but the majority was empty background noise. Akaashi focused on everything but school, even if his grades stayed consistent, his mind mainly preoccupied with the forms and value his paintings could produce rather than his studies. Bokuto wasn’t around per usual, he showed up on weekends with bright eyes and loud smiles, but his energy throughout the third year hallways remained stagnant. Through careful observation (Kenma called it stalking- Akaashi never denied the claim), Bokuto’s friend group seemed to rise with the ranks, the circle slowly expanding and adopting new first years in its disobedient manner. 

Akaashi saw Miya a few times. From the moment Akaashi had heard him speak (from a distance, of course), he instantly caught onto the small bits of Bokuto in the other boy’s personality, like he was his apprentice or something. His group still had Kuroo, Daishou (supposedly), Miya (supposedly), and one other boy Akaashi didn’t recognize. The only first year additions were the weird kid with orange hair who obviously did not belong there, and the foreign one who stuck out like a sore thumb. Kenma had mentioned that he was Russian and Akaashi never thought to ask how he knew that. 

Maybe he was too invested in Bokuto’s friends. He told himself it was a coping mechanism.

In his peripheral vision, Akaashi caught a flash of movement, two boys, laughing, exiting the doors of a small grocery store. His bike slowed at the sudden appearance, his right foot coming down to aide the motion. The one with the shaved head, Watari, Akaashi recognized him from his club, waved through the small distance, beckoning Akaashi over. The other boy there had a bowl cut and a pretty indifferent expression, his hands fisted into his khaki pockets. Both had casual clothing, jeans and sweatshirts with matching beanies. Akaashi momentarily wondered if Bokuto would ever want to match hats with him.

“Akaashi! You headin’ to the school? Walk with us!” Watari grinned, fastening his pace so he was stood next to Akaashi. 

_No shit,_ Akaashi thought, allowing himself to purse his lips in the ' _I’m socially awkward, so I’m using this as an introduction because I have nothing else to say to you’,_ smile. He tugged out his earbuds and hopped off his bike, gripping the handles as a way of support.

Bowl-cut-boy turned his head swiftly at the mention, his eyes lighting, “You’re Akaashi?”

Akaashi nodded, because obviously.

“Your paintings are really cool! the first year art teacher always uses yours as examples.”

“This is Goshiki,” Watari clarified, “First year. He joined the art club a few days ago.”

Goshiki looked mildly offended at his taken chance of inauguration, but seemed to let it slide. His face was tense, but still carried a sense of kindness, which was a nice change of pace. Watari held up a plastic bag and dug through the contents, offering Akaashi packaged onigiri, to which he politely declined.

“Isn’t a little late to be joining clubs?”

Goshiki choked on his snack, to which Watari lightly chuckled at. Akaashi didn’t mean for his response to come out harsh, and honestly, he didn’t think it came out that way. Goshiki didn’t look angry at the comment, just surprised at the tone. The vibe seemed friendly, almost.

“Watari made me. He said I had a _natural talent_ , or whatever,” Goshiki smugly added through another mouthful of rice, nudging his friend in his side. Akaashi smiled at the gesture, reverting his focus back to keeping his bike balanced on the sidewalk. 

“You still have your bag?” Watari nudged towards Akaashi's sagged backpack, digging out another riceball.

He shrugged, “I have cram on Wednesdays. I usually only stop home once to change, didn’t have time to do anythin’ else. I’m shooting to get into Seijoh,” Akaashi explained, tugging on his hoodie strings with his finger as a made-up habit, just to keep his other hand occupied.

Goshiki jumped out from Watari’s side in surprise, to which the other returned, “Seijoh is like an hour away!”

Akaashi nodded, “I have a friend who’s going there next year. I think I’d do better there,” he blinked at Goshiki’s strained expression, “I can just take the train, it’s not that big of a deal. That’s kind of an empty promise though, I’m not even sure I’ll get in."

“Do your parents know you wanna go there?” Watari pressed, obviously not too invested on the topic.

He had to think then, because Akaashi had never voiced his pretty far-fetched decision to get into an out of district school, nonetheless a school who didn’t have very high acceptance rates. Sure, he wanted to go to Karasuno, but it’s not like he had much motivation to go there anyway. Bokuto already said he didn’t want to attend high school and Kenma was moving to the next district over once July came. Going to Oikawa’s high school seemed like a plan he had formed in his head ever since Oikawa had brought up the idea, it all seemed pretty set in stone. 

“No. They probably won't care. They want me to get into a good school anyway.”

“Karasuno is a good school. That's where most of the Kitagawa kids go,” Watari noted.

All three of them paused, their faces scrunching in held-back laughter. Their mouths burst at the seams, loud guffaws echoing through the empty street. A woman who just happened to be passing stared them down, her voice quieting into her phone as she walked past. Watari’s face was contagious when he smiled, and Goshiki seemed to think the same. 

“ _Karasuno is a good school,_ my ass,” Akaashi heaved.

“Your friends will miss you. Who else is gonna kiss the art teacher’s ass?” 

He decided to refrain from mentioning that he _knew_ no one would miss him, just for the sake of turning the mood sour. Akaashi gaped at Watari, pushing against his shoulder in feign annoyance, which only produced more laughter from the trio. 

For once, the laughter wasn’t forced, which was nice. 

“I would do cram, but I think I’d die. I don’t know how you do it,” Goshiki spoke while catching his breath. Watari agreed, nodding his head vigorously. 

“It shows, trust me.”

This prompted another round of laughter until all three had their hands on their stomachs. The middle school came into view, a few other students either entering or exiting the compound. Akaashi found himself less dissociative in that moment, the other two boys helping the conversation flow easily. Akaashi figured this was what it felt like to actually want to talk to others. Watari and Goshiki were like two stars slowly crashing into each other, two wide bursts of lightning that created rifts among the rest of the universe and dragged everyone into their orbit.

For once, the voice in Akaashi’s head wasn’t telling him to run away, but to maybe give having a social life a chance. Maybe he was high.

They ascended the first floor stairwell, the hallway mainly deserted save for the few classrooms open in club activities. Watari slid open the art classroom’s door and spread his arms in welcome, announcing his arrival, Goshiki trailing after him. Akaashi, still tripping off the earlier set of giggles, smiled fondly at the two, which seemed to disrupt his entire sense of being. He caught himself and set his mouth into a line before the rest of the club members saw him. 

He grabbed a smock out of one of the bins and set up a small work space next to Goshiki’s easel, the boy bounding around to meet other members. The room wasn’t particularly crowded, the other students mainly celled up into groups with other pieces of paint-splattered clothing wrapped around their figures. Akaashi plugged his earbuds into his phone and stuck them into his ears, swirling one of his brushes in one of his cups of tap water to soak. There was no teacher to aide the rest of the club, which was strange, because normally they had a supervisor wandering around. 

The beginning painting process went smoothly; he’d softly outlined the canvas with pencil first, a figure of someone sitting with their back facing away from Akaashi, slowly coming together. He had a short debate with himself on whether or not he should make it female or male, soon settling on female, and bringing the pencil down to wave the hair across the shoulders and down the nameless woman’s back. He traced the shape of several mountains in the background, fir trees and the edge of a cliff in direct view. His eyes moved over the shapes, the final rough draft scratched across the white material in light graphite.

The shape of the woman was small and centered, her legs swinging down over a clifftop. Beside the cliff, there was the messy landscaping job he’d concocted in all of fifteen minutes, as well as the outline of the different shades he’d paint the sky with. 

Akaashi stepped back to render the proportions in his mind and almost bumped into Goshiki, the boy's hands cupped around a white mug. He smiled softly down at the shorter boy, which the other seemed to process slowly, before quickly mumbling an apology. He scurried back to his workspace and set down his cup, launching back into what Akaashi would designate as tunnel vision. His eyes scraped over Goshiki’s canvas next to his own, the portrait of a celebrity Akaashi assumed, and felt his insecurity towards drawing portraits skyrocket. 

The face was perfectly proportioned for a for a first year artist, although the shading was off. It looked like a real person, rather than the globs Akaashi created when he tried sketching faces. His lungs constricted momentarily and he tugged off his smock, removing his earbuds and sticking them into his backpack by the easel. He figured this would be a good time to take a break.

“You leaving?” Watari called out from across the room, his own brush cascading across a canvas. 

Akaashi shook his head, “Bathroom.”

Watari nodded in understanding and twisted his head back to his own artwork, chatting away with the stranger next to him. As he departed from the room, Akaashi pondered how people did that, just struck up conversations with others they didn’t know and naturally went from there. Maybe he was just an ass, he knew he had a bit of anxiety with those situations, but it wasn’t to the point where he had a complete inability to socialize. He could socialize, there was no issue with that, it was just the silence that carried from dead conversations. If one person lost interest, it ruined the entire mood, it was one of Akaashi’s greatest fears. He needed to rely on others to talk for him.

Maybe that’s why he liked Bokuto so much, Bokuto could carry conversations and keep them lively.

Bokuto.

Akaashi sighed at the name and he didn’t know why. Maybe that was just something he told himself to make himself feel better, something to keep his mind at ease. He kind of knew, but not really. Thinking about Bokuto put him on edge, to say the least, it made his skin crawl, but also made his organs blow bubbles through plastic straws. 

A boy with dark hair rounded the corner and Akaashi recognized him immediately, the sight making both his mood and stomach plummet. Miya wasn’t looking up, his eyes were glued to his phone. He had a black t-shirt that hung loosely over his thin frame and green socks that hiked up his calf. His cleats matched the color, which honestly bothered Akaashi a little more than he’d ever admit. A red tipped tissue stuck out of his nose, although Miya didn’t look to be in pain. 

Akaashi remembered Bokuto mentioning Miya played soccer; he didn’t know soccer was still going through spring, but maybe it was warm enough. 

Miya giggled lightly at something he saw on the screen, the phone betraying him not a second later and dutifully dropping to the floor. Akaashi watched the ordeal and figured he was close enough to help him, his hand drooping down to pick up the device. He decided he’d refrain from being a complete ass, just for now. Akaashi handed the phone to the boy, both their eyes staying locked onto the cracked glass.

The phone had a tiny fracture in the corner, but Miya didn’t seem too pressed about it. He sighed discontentedly and wiped at the corner of his phone, his eyes drifting from the screen onto Akaashi, who was stood there silently.

“Thanks,” He mumbled, and that was it. He sounded nasally.

 _Talk to him_. _Act normal for once in your life._

“You’re Bokuto’s friend, right?”

After watching Miya blankly stare back at him, a well-put representation of Akaashi’s thoughts at that very moment would be: FUCKING. FUCK? WHAT. AIUFBIFUSGF.

Miya sensed the discomfort and straightened his posture, chuckling lightly, “Who?”

“You’re Miya? Atsumu, I think? Bokuto mentioned you, he said you’re a second year. Like me,” Akaashi replied with his sudden burst of confidence. He figured if he was gonna make a fool of himself, he might as well go all out. He refrained from mentioning the big dick controversy Bokuto had indicated previously.

Miya tugged the tissue out of his nose and clumped it into a tiny ball. There was a red tint underneath his nostrils, residue most likely, “Nope. Don’t know a Bokuto. Atsumu probably does though, he’s pretty popular.”

Akaashi stared in confusion, his eyes squinting at the person in front of him.

“I’m Osamu,” Osamu pressed a hand to his chest sarcastically, “his _brother_ , you know, as in siblings. We look kind-of alike. Just a tad bit.”

Of course. _Of course._

There was a brief interval of silence, which probably was ten seconds, but felt like ten minutes. 

“You’re literally him,” was all Akaashi could think to come up with.

“You’ve obviously never spoken to him before then,” Osamu replied, no sign of discomfort anywhere in his tone, mostly amusement, which made Akaashi’s stomach skin itself. His smile was lazy, which was very Atsumu-esque, but the more he studied the other boy, Akaashi noticed the small differences. His hair was folded the opposite side, his lips were a bit thinner, and he was a bit skinnier. These differences might’ve surpassed the casual passersby if that passersby didn’t spend most of their free time observing Bokuto’s mob. 

Akaashi didn’t know what else to say, truthfully, “This is weird.”

“And embarrassing?”

“That too.”

They both snorted in unison, Akaashi’s face heated from both the embarrassment of confusing Osamu with his twin brother, as well as the whole aspect of having no communication skills. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he couldn’t socialize, because this didn’t seem like the sort of socialization someone should have with others, just for the sake of their emotional being.

“I’m Akaashi. You play soccer? Are you on break?” he stared at his feet, voice quieter than normal.

“Nope. Just doing the same as you.”

Akaashi tilted his head in question, “And that is?”

“You’re _‘going to the bathroom’,_ right?”

“I could definitely be going to the bathroom right now.”

Osamu laughed this time, the noise wracking his body, “I’m gonna go sit by the third year classrooms, you wanna come with?”

This definitely counted as skipping, not that he was opposed to the activity. Akaashi nodded and turned towards Osamu, the stench of sweat drifting off his body as they got closer. Akaashi held his breath, although the stench became less pungent the longer he stood by the other boy.

“What happened to your nose?”

Osamu cracked his fingers, “Ball to the face. Happens pretty often.”

Akaashi glanced at him quizzically.

The other seemed to take that as an invitation to keep talking, “I play goalkeeper. Pretty shit at it, but no one else wants to do it cause’ I’m the only one who isn’t afraid of the first year’s kicks. I don’t actually like my sport, I just do it for Atsumu cause’ he’s a pussy and can’t do anything for himself,” Osamu rambled, fumbling with his phone as they walked.

“Just quit then.”

Osamu ignored the comment, staring straight ahead, “I gotta say, I was pretty offended when you mixed us up, Atsumu and I. Not something I’d be proud of.”

“Never met him,” Akaashi replied coolly. 

“If you’re friends with Bokuto, I would think you knew him. Atsumu basically hangs off him like a koala. I don’t really know his friends, although I do know Kou-chan,” Osamu began, smirking at Akaashi’s betrayed expression, “I just liked seeing the anguish on your face.”

“You’re a sadist.”

“A pretty one.”

Akaashi alternated his feet between the white and cream colored tiles below them, missing the cracks, “Why are you skipping? It’s optional. You really should just quit if you hate it that much.”

“You’re skipping just as much as me, ‘Kaashi-san.”

“I’m in art. I just needed to breathe before I started losing brain cells from all the fumes.”

“Can’t you get high off that?” Osamu asked, genuinely curious.

“Do I look high?”

“A little.”

They laughed like it was funny.

Contrary to what Osamu said, they didn't sit, instead they found themselves wandering the halls, the receding light from outside providing enough reflection off the walls so that the two boys could see. Akaashi played with his hoodie strings and tried not to think about how Watari would perceive him if he’d noticed the extra missing person.

He convinced himself Watari didn’t care enough to notice his absence anyway. He also convinced himself he didn’t care about what Watari thought of him.

“So you paint?”

“You kick balls.”

Osamu nodded, balancing his phone on his palm. He thumbed through text messages, every so often replying to a new notification that popped up. 

“You don’t seem too fond of Atsumu.”

Osamu hummed at that, pursing his lips in agreement, “It’s not about whether or not I’m fond of him. He’s my best friend. He always will be. It’s just- his personality is kinda shit. I take pride in being nothing like him. Bokuto and Daishou only feed into that. I think he has the whole, _‘I’m friends with a bunch of upperclassmen so I’m superior’_ mindset. It gets annoying.”

Akaashi noticed Osamu’s long-winded way of talking. He didn’t mind.

“Sumu is the kind of person that, like, prides himself in being born two minutes before me. He prides himself in pointing out others pimples, or a cold sore, or just shit others can’t really do anything about, you know? He prides himself in the fact that his girlfriend is only with him because she’s a lonely druggie who thinks he’s a third year and wants to mess him up, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Osamu waved his hands when he spoke, although his voice was still calm. His face was layered and even, even if his voice and bodily expression spoke volumes.

Akaashi’s ears peaked in interest, his eyes scanning the other boy’s face. The more he learned, the more he wanted to meet Atsumu so he could compare the two. 

“Oh, so now you’re invested?” Osamu snickered at the sudden change in Akaashi’s attentiveness.

“Well, I was already going to ask about the girlfriend. And the whole big dick thing.”

“Big dick thing?”

“Nevermind,” Akaashi mumbled.

Osamu twirled around, his lungs bursting through his mouth in large heaves, “No! Now you gotta tell me, what do you mean _big dick_ thing?”

Akaashi groaned and cursed his own inquisitiveness, “Nothing, literally, I swear. Bokuto said Daishou said he has a big dick. I was going to ask as a _joke_ , I swear. It’s just a rumor,” Akaashi groaned into his hand. This was far from normal.

“And how would I know? Are you implying I measure my brothers dick as a _hobby?_ ”

Akaashi shrugged, making no effort to clear up the misunderstanding, “Well, I wasn’t just going to ask him if his dick is big,” he replied as nonchalantly as he could.

Osamu paused, “You could ask and he’d tell you. He’d be _glad_ you asked.”

“I didn’t want to ask him. And no, I was not implying you measure your brothers dick, I just thought since you know… you’re _twins-_ ”

“We have the same dick sizes,” Osamu finished.

Akaashi nodded, his lack of discomfort towards the situation alarming.

There was silence for a few minutes, although it wasn’t intolerable silence. The air of awkwardness seemed to leave once they’d begun debating dick sizes, their slow rise in friendship only teetering off of complete strangers. It was weird, but Osamu was strangely refreshing to be around. 

“He’s five inches, at most,” Osamu tapped his chin.

Akaashi looked up when the other spoke, his eyes the size of saucers.

“I’m six and a half.”

The noise Akaashi let out of his mouth was something close to inhuman, the roar so deafening it echoed down from one end of the hallway to the other, Osamu’s immature giggles joining in. The feeling Akaashi had was nothing short of awestruck. The entire world collapsed around him with the idea of him finding five inch male genitalia funny, in any sort of the word. But there he was, crouching down and caging his face with his shirt collar to stop the tears flowing from his eyes. Osamu was in similar condition, likely only laughing because of the devilish noises rising from Akaashi’s vocal cords.

He still believed he couldn’t socialize well; Osamu was either really good at ignoring it or maybe he just didn’t care. Both options were weighed.

What remained of his time in the art club went by quick and painless, Osamu quickly made his round back to the gym doors and with a wave, and they were quickly separated. Akaashi figured that’d be the last time he’d ever see the boy again. People like Osamu traveled in waves around that school, they appeared, disappeared, they might reappear once to collectively mess shit up, but then hastily disappear again. Akaashi liked to think he fit himself into that category, but the students who stuck into that genre didn’t _try_ , they just naturally sailed among the shadows of the walls. 

Osamu definitely fit into that category. He was cool, he was interesting, people probably liked him, but he likely wouldn’t make the effort to talk to Akaashi in the presence of others, like his twin brother or the rest of the stupid mob. He was revitalizing in the moment, that was it.

Back in the art room, Watari frowned, the expression taking up his whole face, “It’s almost 7:30.”

“I’m almost done.”

“Your mom will kill me if we don’t leave soon, Goshiki.”

The boy’s head spun with a glare, the tip of his paintbrush flicking towards Watari’s face. Goshiki showed no remorse in his appearance, his mouth creeping into a nasty smirk. Akaashi lifted his eyes at the two, the damp towel in his hand going limp. His paint-water mug still had a bright blue stain in one of the cracks at the bottom, much to his discontempt. It ruined the whole aesthetic of the cup, small chips of white floating around at the bottom in tiny puddles, as if it knew of the mugs eventual demise. He wiped at the porcelain again and set it down in one of the cupboards, untying his smock around his midsection with one well-practiced motion.

There were only a few others loitering about the classroom. Watari’s area had already been cleaned up, his form hovering over his shorter friend like a cloud. They bickered silently, the paintbrush being tugged from one hand to the other.

“Just finish it Friday,” Akaashi suggested, his attention still staged towards cleaning his station. Goshiki grunted at the sudden disapproval from both sides, his brush defeatedly dropping into his mug. Akaashi carefully placed his canvas behind one of the counters and tossed a thin sheet over the top, hesitantly wiping his paint-stained hands onto his jeans. There was no use in being hygienic anyway, it’s not like the acrylic was going to come off within the next week or so. 

He tugged on his backpack and bid his goodbyes to the last few members cleaning their easels, Watari only giving a half-hearted wave and nothing more. Akaashi told himself not to think about it. 

Akaashi repeated the same route he’d taken with Osamu, balancing his feet between the cracks on the floor like a child repeating nursery rhymes through his head. The sky outside had gone inky, the emptiness and gloom of the school hallway sending shivers up his spine. The words he’d spoken to Osamu ran through his brain over little train tracks, steam rising through his ears like a convoy. He didn’t want relationships like that, he thought. In the short time they’d spoken, he’d deemed Osamu as a living statue of Akaashi’s internal discipline towards meeting people. Watari and Goshiki followed that same category.

He’d graduate junior high, then high school, and never see any of these people again. It was invigorating.

Akaashi trudged down the stairs two at a time and hopped off the last step as a grand finale, the keychains on his backpack clinking together at the sudden change of depth. A corkboard was stuck onto the wall next to the stairwell, lines of windows opposite to aid in the physical appearance of the school. 

The gym door was open.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so nosy. He wasn’t naturally intrusive, it’s just that the door was both wide open and in plain view- and that there was obviously someone sitting there. More like flattened against the floor; the person’s hands were out Jesus-style and their pants were rolled up past their knees. Purple blotches painted the ashy skin and made the person look frail almost.

“Bokuto?”

Akaashi assumed Bokuto didn’t hear him; it was strange, seeing Bokuto there, all by himself, obviously unaware anyone else was watching him. He was still in his school uniform, his backpack underneath his head. Akaashi’s feat were moving before he could stop himself, his fight or flight response a form of excuse for the action. Bokuto must’ve heard the squeaking of sneakers, his eyes shifting towards Akaashi’s form temporarily, before moving back to the ceiling. Neither of them spoke.

Akaashi dropped down next to his friend, crossing his legs.

“Do you want me to ask if you’re okay?” Akaashi asked quietly, keeping his voice as soft as he could.

“No.”

Blue eyes trailed over Bokuto’s form, Akaashi’s back hunched.

“Have you gone home yet?”

“No.”

Akaashi tilted his head. Bokuto already understood what that meant.

“Didn’t wanna,” Bokuto mumbled in answer, his right wrist moving to rest over his eyes. At first, Akaashi feared he was crying, specifically because he didn’t know what he’d do if Bokuto cried. He’d probably cry with him. But Bokuto made no other noise beside his murmured disagreements, the conversation already done with.

“Do you wanna stay at mine?”

“No.”

In normal Bokuto-fashion, it was an empty promise.

It was exactly 12:49 in the morning when Akaashi awoke to his phone buzzing its way off his nightstand. He didn’t care, he had been awake anyway, sleep was less of a necessity in his mind and more of a commodity. His ceiling was starting to turn into blank faces and blobs that scurried across one end of his dark room to the other. The bed was uncomfortably warm.

He blinked at the screen, his eyes adjusting to its brightness. 

“Hello?” Akaashi rasped.

“The offer still up?”

Bokuto was definitely crying this time. Akaashi’s blankets were thrown off his bed and his shoes were tied before he could to ten. There were street noises in the background of the call, pedestrians laughing, police sirens, and all of the above. The worst case scenario flashed through Akaashi’s mind at light speed, his heart rate fluctuating. 

“You mean- like, if you can stay at mine? Of course- are you okay?”

Bokuto inhaled and Akaashi could hear the stutters, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Akaashi zipped a hoodie up over his pajamas and pushed his phone against the juncture between his shoulder and ear. He held the doorknob so it wouldn’t creak, slowly peeking out into the hallway that connected his parents bedroom to his own. He snuck out and pulled the door shut, listening to Bokuto’s labored breaths on the other line. The television was still on downstairs, which wasn’t surprising, but judging by the time, his father would probably be passed out on the couch. Akaashi debated turning the thing off for him. 

He didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Bokuto strained.

“Please, don’t apologize. It’s fine, I wasn’t even sleeping. I already said you could come over.”

He tumbled downstairs as quietly as he could, the front door already unlocked. The outside was chilly, but Akaashi told himself he didn’t feel it, that whatever was wrong with Bokuto was more urgent than the slow decirculation of his limbs. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, it was all Bokuto and his attempt at masking the fact he was crying over the phone. Akaashi’s insides caved in on themselves whenever Bokuto exhaled.

“Where are you?”

Bokuto took a few minutes to respond and Akaashi waited patiently. He pulled himself onto his bike and pedaled in the direction of the cafe, unaware of what other direction he should start in.

“I don’t really know. I just walked, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

Akaashi sighed and tried to make it sound less like annoyance and more understanding, “Are you by the cafe? I’ll just ride around and try and find you.”

Bokuto sniffed and covered it with a cough, “I’m outside a parking garage, it’s next to… there’s a post office, like a small one. I walked from the cafe, I don’t remember which direction though. I don’t think I’m too far.”

Post office. Parking garage. The words replayed through Akaashi’s head, his mental GPS trying to map out his destination. 

“Uh... okay. Just stay there, maybe stand like, by the road. Stand under a light so I’ll see you.”

“I’m sitting by the road,” was his low response.

Akaashi nodded, even if Bokuto wasn’t there to see it, “Good. Good, stay there, I’m serious don’t move.”

Bokuto sounded less nasally, his voice beginning to level, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Alright.”

“Akaashi?”

He hummed in response.

“Can you stay on the line with me? Until you get here?”

Akaashi hummed again, this time a bit louder with a bit more enthusiasm. 

There were plenty of post offices in the city, even more parking garages. Akaashi had taken this route more times than he could count yet he couldn’t recall ever seeing a post office; it was all soba shops and sketchy looking nail salons. The cafe was tiny and cornered, but it still stood out well compared to the rest of the street. His senses had never been sharper in that moment, any flash of movement on the sidewalk, any flash of dark hair, any flash of _Bokuto_ , it would’ve been seen immediately. Every building Akaashi passed, he analyzed, and in the heat of the moment, he almost ran into a drunk man.

His head was empty, at least he thought it was. For a split second, it almost felt like biking to find your best friend, in your pajamas, in the middle of March, in below freezing temperatures, at 1:00 in the morning, was a normal thing people just did for fun. Akaashi might've regretted it, he asked himself a few times if Bokuto was even worth it, and it was until he heard the broken voice of the devil on the other line that he realized that yes, it was completely and utterly worth it. The way Akaashi’s chest constricted at the sound of him only fueled any further intuition on his feelings toward Bokuto. It had been confirmed, it seems.

“Akaashi!”

The voice sent the essence of a seizure up his legs and it made the hair on his neck curl upwards. Akaashi’s bike skidded to a stop, his head twisting so quickly to search for the owner of the voice he was sure he gave himself whiplash. The call had abruptly disconnected, the line going dead and cold. Akaashi shoved the phone into his jacket pockets and met Bokuto’s eyes.

He sat on the other side of the street, his hand waving frantically. Bokuto’s navy sweatshirt was tucked into black sweatpants, the drawstring pulled into a double knot, his shoes untied. The zippers on his backpack were about to pop off, just from the sheer force of whatever Bokuto has shoved into the bag. His face was concealed by the lack of light and Akaashi was thankful; he didn’t know what he’d do if he saw Bokuto’s face right now.

He didn’t even bother to look to see if cars were passing. Bokuto darted across the white lines like he was invincible, and momentarily, Akaashi wondered if he really was.

They stood there for a few seconds, both sides obviously unsure how to greet each other.

Bokuto pulled Akaashi into a hug that smothered any noises of protest he might’ve made. He wrapped his arms around Akaashi’s shoulders and dug his face into the side of his neck, stuttered sighs falling from his mouth. Akaashi pat his back and nudged the side of his friend’s head with his own. Bokuto was warm and welcoming, he was the type of warmth a freshly dried sweater had. 

Bokuto pulled away, his face still relatively hidden, “Thanks.”

“Yep.”

They walked like that, quiet and too tense to bring up the situation at hand. Akaashi expected Bokuto to stand on the other side of his bike, so there was that wall separation there.

Bokuto walked so close to Akaashi he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Their shoes almost collided more than once with the proximity. 

The devil snorted.

“You look fashionable, ‘Kaashi.”

Akaashi frowned in response, glancing down at his current state. His pajamas were fluffy and had polka dots, a white jacket he’d stolen from his father zipped up to his chin. The bottom of the jacket went past the middle of his thigh, and honestly, he’d barely noticed. He looked frumpy, but it wasn’t his fault, he’d pulled on the first thing he found. 

“I’m the one helping you, stupid.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are. Like usual,” Bokuto laughed again, but there was no humor present. It was all self deprecation.

It went quiet again, the street lamps flickering above them. It smelled like wet cement. 

“I’m leaving you next year, you’re gonna be a third year. No one’s gonna be there to beat people up for you,” Bokuto mused, the words teasing, although Akaashi knew he was serious.

It took a few moments for the words to process through Akaashi’s mind; he forgot Bokuto was older than him sometimes. 

“You’ll still visit me. It’s not that big of a deal, it’s not like I see you at school much, anyway. I’m probably gonna go to Seijoh.”

Bokuto got quiet, so quiet Akaashi wondered if he was breathing. They were so close, _so close_ , and Bokuto seemed less human in those moments. He was just a walking doll, his body language completely devoid of volume.

“I… passed. I’m going next year. To Karasuno,” Bokuto returned.

Maybe that’s what it felt like to watch someone you cared about completely crumble; Akaashi couldn’t see his face, but Bokuto’s energy spoke for itself.

“You passed the exams?” Akaashi asked quietly, hiding the surprise in his voice to not set Bokuto off.

Then, he was laughing, “Yeah. I mean Karasuno isn’t the most prestigious of schools- I actually tried, you know, I wanted to go. Kuroo’s really smart, like _really smart_ , and he said he’d help me study.”

Akaashi knew Bokuto was smart. He just wasn’t book smart; he couldn’t focus, he was too high functioning. Bokuto was intelligent and quick to react, but he still struggled in the basic linearity of personal space or how to tie his shoes. 

Maybe that’s what Akaashi was for. He hoped Bokuto thought of him that way.

“That’s great, Bokuto!” And for once, his enthusiasm wasn’t matched.

“But you’re leaving me.”

The bridge came into view. The road was deserted, only a single car passing their strides along the sidewalk. The sky was devoid of clouds, tiny sprinkles of white dotted among the array of darkness like splattered paint. Akaashi kept his eyes focused on connecting the dots.

He didn’t need to explain himself to Bokuto, Akaashi knew that, “I just think Seijoh is… neat.”

“I think you’re neat,” Bokuto replied, except that's not what he said, he just said, “cool,” and let the conversation go dead. Bokuto was staring at Akaashi now, his eyes burning little cavities in the side of the shorter boy’s head.

So much for carrying conversation.

“My dad’s back.”

Akaashi jolted.

“He’s living with you again?”

Bokuto nodded, “Mom says they’re not together anymore, but I hear them at night. I’m not dumb. They’re too _close_ to not be together, even if he… you know.”

It all clicks in Akaashi’s head then: Bokuto in the gym by himself, Bokuto’s bad mood, calling Akaashi at an odd hour at night, it all comes together. Akaashi wants to wrap himself around Bokuto suddenly, he wants to hold him and tell him it’s going to be okay, he wants to never let go. It’s terrifying at first, because that action is so incredibly _not_ Akaashi, and the idea of physical contact never really runs well through his mind. Bokuto could be an exception.

“They don’t treat me like a person, Akaashi.”

And he was crying.

“Bokuto-”

“No. Stop-” Bokuto wiped his eyes with his sleeve, the motion sending ice through Akaashi’s veins, “I’m fine.”

They were still walking, even if Akaashi’s legs had turned into a substance similar to Jello.

"He's been back for like a week and a half. I don't like being there, so I just stayed with Kuroo and the rest of his team until I felt like leaving. Then he left, so that's why I was alone."

Bokuto inhaled to calm the stuttering in his voice, the sense of emotional turmoil drifting off his being like he was nuclear. Akaashi had never seen someone so drained before, so absolutely broken from the inside out, and he’d seen himself in a mirror before. This was nothing close to that, this had no correlation to his own problems, this was rooted so far into Bokuto the stems were rising out of his ears and twisting around his neck. He knew Bokuto’s home wasn’t exactly the ideal situation, but this was past just toxicity. The longer Akaashi stared at the boy next to him, the longer Bokuto began to fade into a hologram.

Akaashi’s house had come into view and he’d never been happier to see the structure. 

“He didn’t get arrested because of mom, you know? That’s probably what you thought, that’s what everyone thinks, they all think he hurts _her_. It was never her and she blames me for it, she blames me for what he does. I’m his fucking punching bag, Akaashi. I’m not-” Bokuto wiped his nose, his voice surprisingly level, “I’m not a bad person. I don’t know what I _did_ -”

“Bokuto.”

“I don’t even do anything. I just breathe around him. My grandparents are moving out, my aunt quit when he came back, and now _you’re leaving me_ -”

_“Koutarou.”_

Bokuto quieted, the tears halted. His eyes were bright red under the porch lights, the electricity flickering on automatically at the movement. They stood there in Akaashi’s driveway, his bike forgotten by the fence. 

Akaashi didn’t know what to say. He probably should’ve thought about that before abruptly gaining Bokuto’s attention. 

“I’m not leaving you.”

And then Bokuto smiled, the expression so undeniably heart wrenching, Akaashi felt his own eyes begin to prickle. 

Akaashi wrapped his arms around the other boy’s midsection, mumbling into his shoulder, “I’m not leaving you,” he repeated. 

“You don’t have to change your decision based off me. I don’t need sympathy.”

The hug was over as quickly as it began, Akaashi’s internal organs shutting down one by one. He tugged Bokuto’s hand into his own and lead him to the front door, the door still unlocked from earlier. They slipped inside and ascended the stairs, Akaashi unwilling to mention the television still bright with energy in the living room. Bokuto’s neck craned over his friend’s shoulder to observe the photographs hung along the walls, some of baby Akaashi, some of the pictures from the holidays, and some wedding pictures of Akaashi's parents. 

“Of course I do,” Akaashi shut his door lightly behind them, nudging Bokuto onto the plush carpet that lined his room. He dropped his bag by the foot of Akaashi’s bed, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. Akaashi glanced at the alarm on his nightstand, fully beginning to feel the exhaustion setting in. 3:06.

“You shouldn’t have to. I didn’t mean it in that way, I shouldn’t choose what you do with your life.”

Akaashi held back the ‘you are my life’ comment on the tip of his tongue and settled on, “You’re not. I want to go to Karasuno. If you’re going, I’m going,” and that was final.

It was quiet for a moment, the air catching in Akaashi’s lungs and constricting blood movement. It all rushed to his head. This was the first time Bokuto had been in his room. Akaashi spared a glance around to make sure there weren’t any messy portraits of the devil scattered among his room.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Bokuto suggested.

“We’re sharing.”

Bokuto smiled knowingly, as if he assumed that would be Akaashi’s reaction, “I move a lot in my sleep.”

“So do I. It’ll cancel out.”

They both snickered lightly at the comment, Akaashi leaning down to untie his shoes. Bokuto did the same, crawling into the corner of Akaashi’s bed and flattening his head against the pillows.

“You’re not going to fit, ‘Kaashi.”

The nickname was a reminder that Bokuto probably felt better.

Akaashi pulled his desk lamp on, rummaging around in the drawers to find a sharpie. His shoe was in his other hand, which was gross when he thought about it, so he didn’t.

“It’s big for a twin, it’ll fit both of us,” he shot back.

There was no response as Akaashi tugged his jacket off and tumbled onto the bed, placing himself directly in front of Bokuto. Their knees touched. 

Bokuto looked like the entire world combusted around him, all signs of his earlier run of emotions forgotten. His hands moved quickly, the shoe landing in his lap and the marker’s cap discarded somewhere around the room. The rubber top of the shoe had an awkward area by the corner, obviously the outcome of a messy clean-up job with a wipey. A few other smaller drawings had portions cut out of themselves, the area large enough so Bokuto could fit in a few doodles.

“Please… don’t draw a dick.”

He didn’t. He drew a sun and two tiny stick figures underneath, their hands linked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sry this chapter is kinda long (╥ω╥)


	6. akaashi's play-by-play of what-the-fucking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something about their hands conjoined felt different this time. Akaashi never regularly held hands with anyone, so it might’ve been his teenager brain talking, but it felt like there was something different attached, something so much braver than other times Bokuto held his hand. It didn’t feel electric like how most romance novels stereotyped it, it didn’t feel romantic, it just felt like how it was supposed to. It felt like what clean pillows smelled like, or orange juice, or steamed brocolli, or all of the above, in that order.

Akaashi didn’t think Oikawa was good with words; he didn’t think Oikawa was clever or sharp or any other definition you could find under the world ‘intelligent’ in a dictionary. Oikawa spit white lies like a PEZ dispenser, he isn’t someone you should trust your own property under. Maybe he wasn’t someone you should classify as a close companion, Akaashi knew this best. Still, Oikawa was his only voice of reason.

“You’re sick. Like, badly,” Oikawa noted, although it wasn’t derogatory in nature. 

“I wasn’t ready for him- I wasn’t ready for… everything he is.” And that’s what stirred the atmosphere like a hot pot. The two, flat on the carpet of Oikawa’s bedroom, breathed in the same heat that drifted from the open window, the room stinking up from the street vendors below. The fan at the foot of the bed had pink streamers tied to the inside, which could only be expected of Oikawa’s infatuation with bright colors. Akaashi made a note in his mind to do the same to his ceiling fan when he returned home.

“You say that like you don’t love the _sound_ of him.”

Akaashi turned his head to the side, his head purposely knocking into his Oikawa’s. He stifled a yawn, his eyes glistening.

“It’s what he is, Tooru. What he-” Akaashi sat upwards, clasping and unclasping his hands into empty air, “-what he… _made_ , it’s like he’s doing it on purpose. I don’t get it, I don’t get how he’s different.”

Oikawa snorted, “Me neither.”

Akaashi nudged the other boy’s stomach with his foot, Oikawa still horizontal along the ground. His cheeks were shiny, the residue likely warm to touch. Akaashi didn’t test that theory.

“I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for _him_.”

“You already said that.”

Akaashi kneed Oikawa so hard, his lungs seemed to collapse in on themselves. The two laughed in unison, the noise spiraling off the walls and reverberating all the way from the ozone back into the confines of Oikawa's bedroom.

The sound of wind pushing water spiraled into his ears, and his eyes opened, though they were still fogged and sensitive. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, his mind was white like printer paper. The previous conversation, the subject of last week's heat stroke brought to you by Oikawa's comfortable carpet, played through Akaashi's mind like a turbine, tossing the words around to create dents in his already mushed headplate. Akaashi wondered if the doctors forgot to mold his skull when he was born, he heard that was a thing from Kenma. Maybe he had some weird neurological condition that was never properly diagnosed because his parents think therapy is a sham. It would explain a hell of a lot more when it came down to as of why he was so fucking _afraid_ of connecting with others. 

It was the first time Akaashi had admitted his liking towards Bokuto. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, even if it was in the confines of Oikawa’s bedroom, where no one else could hear him say it. It felt like he’d let out a part of himself- like he’d completely disrupted the movement of time and space. He felt regret seep into the back of his throat whenever he thought about the way Oikawa looked at him; there was no judgement, just indifference, which was somehow worse. There was a pit of searing anxiety at the bottom of his stomach, much louder than how it had ever been previously.

Akaashi dug his hands into the gravel below, the tiny pebbles digging underneath his fingernails and into his skin cells. The riverbank was hot- too hot- the type of hot that projected waves all over the sky. Cicadas and other insects alike buzzed around the small group, lighting up the surrounding forest in natural noise. The chatter of the other boys also drifted into Akaashi’s ears every so often, but he’d chosen to block that out long before they’d arrived at the lake. 

The edge of the pier and the water below it, the depths and blackness of absolute nothingness, was beginning to look appealing. It was only a small walk from their circle, he could stealthily crawl over there, fall in, and never rise back up. It would still be better than whatever this was.

It was Tuesday, Akaashi thinks. Days aren’t tracked over summer, it all just mixes into one line of a chemically induced fog that was most likely built up from the paints. He painted more when it was warm- the canvases dried outside quicker and his father wasn’t constantly on his ass about the house smelling.

He had very few fears: he’d never verbally admit to these fears, but some could be easily caught on to. Bokuto’s mob, for example, wasn’t a fear, just something irrational Akaashi knew he’d run from if it chased him in a dream. The mob had showed up on his doorstep, Bokuto in front, all stood tall with swimming trunks and sandals. They each had backpacks of their own and sweat rolling down their forehead, and furthermore to Akaashi’s immediate horror, small smiles of pitying amusement when the door had opened with Akaashi in nothing but boxers and a _Naruto_ t-shirt.

Akaashi pinched himself on the elbow. He didn’t wake up.

He’d almost shut the door several times to make sure it wasn’t some sort of portal to a separate dimension. Bokuto wouldn’t do this to him. Bokuto knew of his dislike for new people, nonetheless a group of 'new' people who were probably even worse than the mentioned. For the first time in several months, ever since Bokuto stayed at Akaashi’s house for almost a week, did he only feel pure resentment towards the boy and his _stupid_ spiky hair. 

And he was smiling like he didn’t know. He was smiling like Akaashi wasn’t already six feet under. He was smiling like he didn’t understand Akaashi, like they hadn’t opened up to each other emotionally several months prior. 

Akaashi didn’t let himself think about that, he just nodded when Bokuto asked if he wanted to join him at the lake and ran upstairs to grab a different shirt and a pair of swimwear. He didn’t tie his shoes. He didn’t tell his father where he was going. He just tugged at the drawstrings on his shorts and let himself blend in, as if he belonged there. He wondered if some lady sitting out on a bench saw them skipping up the hill and thought to herself, _‘such a lovely group of children! definitely enjoying themselves!’_

He hated Bokuto. He wanted nothing more than to drown Bokuto, then himself. Then, maybe the lady that would ever think to associate Akaashi with such a group of people.

“You want any?”

Akaashi pulled his head away from the clouds, looking into the eyes of one of the boys he didn’t recognize. He was a third year, like Bokuto, Akaashi knew this, but was still unfamiliar with his name. He was holding out a mixed bag of cut cucumbers and sugar snap peas, a face of mixed boredom plainly furrowed between his eyebrows. When Akaashi didn’t respond, the boy’s face turned more judgmental, so much so that it snapped Akaashi out of whatever fantasy he was having. 

“I already ate some,” he lied.

The boy wasn’t convinced, scooting closer and crossing his legs next to Akaashi. It was then he’d truly realized how distant he really was from the mob, whether it be physically or mentally, just from looking into the kid's eyes. His hands were still full of rocks.

“Is it rude to ask who the hell you are?” the boy asked, lifting another piece of cucumber into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open.

Akaashi felt like covering himself in sand and slowly letting himself decompose.

“Bokuto’s friend.”

“Well, yeah- no shit. I mean, like, your name, and stuff. You do badminton with Kuroo?”

“No.”

The boy shook his head like a dog, wet droplets flying off of his light hair. His frame was small for a third year, significantly shorter and thinner than the others there that were entering high school soon. Water dripped off the boy’s chest and onto his pink shorts, a tiny pool forming on top of the curved fabric. Akaashi reached for a sugar snap pea. 

“Didn’t know Bokuto had other friends.”

Akaashi was right, then; Bokuto didn’t care enough to mention him. Akaashi felt stupid for always bringing him up around Kenma. He felt even worse when that line of thought morphed into the past discussion with Oikawa about this same topic. 

“We’re not,” Akaashi said before he could stop himself. He let the anger talk for him.

The boy stared at Akaashi, confused, his chewing consistent, “You said you were his friend-”

“I mean- yeah, we’re friends. We’re friends but we’re not like-” Akaashi spread his hands out to indicate the rest of the mob, “ _friends_ , you know. I don’t really know any of you, he never really talks about any of you, either,” Akaashi finished, the fib leaving his mouth too naturally. He hoped the boy felt insulted.

The kid stared blankly. Akaashi returned the stare, a sudden burst of confidence over the situation growing in him too quickly.

“Ah, well. You haven’t really talked much so,” the boy held his hand out, “I’m Yaku.”

“Akaashi,” and he shook it. He found it strange someone like Yaku would introduce himself in such a way, but then again, Yaku was inhaling cucumbers like nobodies business, so obviously there was still an array of strange things to uncover about the boy.

“You’re a third year?”

Akaashi shook his head, pulling his knees up to his chest. His hands left grimy fingerprints on his calves.

“Second.”

“You look older. You have one of those faces.”

Akaashi held back the _‘couldn’t say the same for you’_ comment.

In his mind, it was dumb to try to have a clear thought process. Akaashi wanted to be anywhere except there; he wanted to be around Kenma or Oikawa, someone he could breathe properly around. Even _Osamu_ sounded tolerable at that moment. He wanted to feel alive again, how he felt when the twin made him laugh, how he felt when he was alone with his portraits, how he felt the first night Bokuto curled into his side and tried to mask his crying through the fabric of Akaashi’s shirt. It was nothing short of trifling. 

“Well, Akaashi,” Yaku stood, “sorry for bothering you-”

“You weren’t. I’m fine- you weren’t bothering me, swear.”

To that, Yaku stuck his judgement back on to his face, crouching back down at the mention. Someone behind them began to laugh, the noise spreading to the rest of the group. Akaashi didn’t turn around to see what caused the commotion and Yaku seemed to do the same, plucking more cucumbers from the bag and tossing them into his mouth carelessly. Akaashi took another sugar-snap pea, this time letting the cool texture settle on his tongue. 

“You know anyone else here? Y'know, besides Bo,” Yaku asked, sticking his legs out and digging his toes into the rocks. His skin was red from the knee down and he had vicious sock tan lines.

“I already said no.”

Yaku looked bothered by Akaashi’s tone, which was annoying.

“You shy or somethin’?”

Akaashi blew a raspberry into the air, hugging his knees into his chest, “No. Just don’t feel well.”

“You should leave then.” 

The response wasn’t harsh, it wasn’t rude, it was just blunt. Yaku looked genuine, he didn’t look like he meant to be insolent. His face was set neutrally, his cheeks puffing with the movement of the cucumbers. Brown eyes stared ahead, running over the waves and the birds swooping down to dig through the mud. Akaashi wasn’t angry at the retort, whether that be from actually _not_ caring, or exhaustion, he wasn’t sure.

Yaku was the one talking to _him,_ anyway.

Two of the several boys behind them darted towards the pier, tugging their shirts off and tossing them absently onto the river bank. Yells broke out as they hopped off and into the water, droplets splashing onto the wood from where Akaashi’s line of vision stopped. Sitting there, dissociating, he realized where he really was, what he was truly bound to do, what was inevitably going to happen. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy swimming, it was the social aspect that would likely carry with it. 

He needed to stop placing himself in the same air as Bokuto. They weren’t the same person, but Akaashi still always felt the need to introduce Bokuto as another part of himself, even if he wasn’t there. Maybe that’s why he went to the lake in the first place, because he felt like there was some stupid ring of attachment between them, it was like an itch to follow.

“You wanna swim?”

Akaashi tilted his head, “Right now?”

“I mean, yeah. That’s like, the whole point."

He really hated Yaku. 

Akaashi stood up, pulled the edge of his sleeve to his elbow, and jerked his shirt off. Yaku mirrored his actions, both pieces of clothing falling into a small pile by the empty cucumber bag. No one noticed their departure, the lengthy chatter only growing as the two boys let the heels of their feet kick back dirt in their wake. The two that had already dove into the water- the Russian one and Kuroo- were already far out, slapping water at each other’s faces all the while still seeming to carry a normal discussion.

Yaku dove in first, his shorter self producing a much larger wave than what Akaashi would’ve expected. The edge of the dock was slippery, the wood was mushy and only promised further descent into the murky depths below. Yaku seemed to be enjoying himself, ignoring the sudden spike of panic in Akaashi’s appearance once the rest of the mob came barreling towards the water.

Then, there were two hands grabbing at his calves, “Just come on. It’s not even that cold,” Yaku pressed.

What else was he supposed to do? Akaashi wasn’t good at decision making, especially not when the devil and his friends were screaming behind him and Yaku looked like he was about to use his inkling of strength and pull Akaashi in against his will. The water was darker up close, the blue slowly mixing into green and yellow. It looked bitter, the goosebumps on Yaku’s skin giving away its true temperature.

There was a quick, “Akaashi-san!” from somewhere behind him, and then he was jumping into the rifts as a way of social avoidance. He almost landed on Yaku in the process.

Akaashi’s head was fully submerged, save for his forehead and eyes above the surface. His hair dripped down his neck and his limbs flailed. The water underneath the pier was shadowed and concealed, the sun merely piercing the edge of the surface. If he looked down, his legs disappeared, the absence of light supplying just enough anonymity. Akaashi stuck his arms out and propelled himself forward, choosing to stick behind Yaku and observe the rest of the mob splashing into the lake one by one.

“God, are you just anti-social?”

Akaashi propelled water onto Yaku’s face, to which the other boy responded similar. Akaashi swam out from under the pier, the socialization from the familiar faces around him, as well as others he didn’t know, bellowing into his ears and back out like an infection. The water became less icy, the initial pinch wearing off. 

Originally, Akaashi’s perception of Bokuto’s friends was nothing short of hysterical; every stereotype for boys who smoked at inappropriate times and had short vocabulary (with bits of acne and Doc Martens sprinkled in for taste) fit within every boy in their own unique way. Each trait lined up chain-linked, just because Akaashi was so good at fitting a persons personality together.

Actually associating with them, just being around them, felt like an anesthetic induced hallucination. The previous standards already stated began to crack at the seams, more positioning into what normal junior high boys should be acting like. There probably still was some of that distinctive delinquent personality below whatever the fuck this was, but just like an onion, the mob only seemed to show that thin, outer layer. They were laughing and smiling and Akaashi _did_ _not feel comfortable_ , but he still felt a little less intimidated than he had previously. 

They were also half-naked, so there was that.

The lanky Russian kid swam up behind Yaku and trapped him underneath the water, droplets spraying onto Akaashi cheeks. The smaller boy put up quite a bit of a fight, smacking the younger’s hands down and throwing himself onto the Russian boy to lever himself underwater. Akaashi watched in disdain, slinking back into the black abyss of the area underneath the pier. Yaku’s attention was stolen from him, not that it had ever been on Akaashi in the first place. 

Then, he was being pulled under.

The shock overwhelmed the panic. It was obviously a hand pulling Akaashi down, there was no pain to accommodate a possible creature initiating the damage, but the hand had to of wielded some exceptional strength to yank him down as quickly as it did. Within one split of a second, he was above the world, breathing, and alive, and then he was below. 

He kept sinking, even if the hands had let his ankles go. Akaashi’s arms went out and his eyes drifted upwards, the rifts in the water combining into the wood above the surface and the line of blue sky just beyond that. He ingested water through his nose and it _hurt_ , it hurt so bad he couldn’t move, his limbs numb yet sticky. Still, it was peaceful being under the water, like having a limb torn off; it was that same few tranquil moments where nothing really moved. The world paused and waited for Akaashi to emerge.

Akaashi didn’t want to die. He didn’t know that until then, until he was underwater and immobile. 

Dramatism was his best characteristic, apparently.

The same hands from earlier dragged him up to the surface and patted down his hair, the circulation beginning to flow back into Akaashi’s limbs steadily. Something went off in his mind, like a spark, something to ignite the sudden anger emitting gas from his veins.

Bokuto laughed, his arms firm around Akaashi’s shoulders, “You tryna drown yourself?”

Akaashi threw the other boy off of him, hiding half his face underneath the water again. The cold panic coursing through his veins slowly calmed, turning more into a dull ache between his eyes and a forgotten grudge. Bokuto sprung up from under the water and caught Akaashi once more, this time dragging them both back underneath.

Akaashi’s eyes opened momentarily, allowing the bluriness and stingy sensation to die down. Bokuto was looking back at him, the yellow blindingly bright beneath the depths. It stunned the other boy, keeping him frozen in place while his nose emitted air bubbles. Bokuto’s face erupted into a smile, his laugh echoing into Akaashi’s ears, even inside the absence of sound. He didn’t let himself smile back at Bokuto. The expression was painfully difficult to hold back.

He was supposed to be _mad_ at Bokuto. He was supposed to _hate_ Bokuto.

Like always, it wasn’t that easy. 

Bokuto pulled Akaashi back up, his hand firm on the other’s wrist. They swam further from the pier, the sun drenching their scalps and turning the skin red. Akaashi still couldn’t see clearly, his eyes sensitive from the water as well as the sudden light.

“So you talked to Yaku?”

Akaashi rubbed his eyes and let the mosaics in his lids calm, looking back up to the sun in human form. Bokuto reached out then, smoothing the dripping pieces of hair from Akaashi’s forehead back to his head, slicking it back like a singer. Unlike most, Bokuto’s eyes didn’t close when he smiled, the skin surrounding his eyes crinkled and his face changed completely, but his eyes never became smaller. Akaashi noticed this at the proximity, with Bokuto’s face directly in front of his, with barely any space between them.

Shit. 

“I mean, he talked to _me._ ”

Bokuto moved backward, tilting his head into the water. He looked wild with his hair down, the length almost reaching his shoulders. When his hair wasn’t stuck up in spikes, he actually looked stable, like a normal person who didn’t steal the hearts of unstable boys and turn their feelings into a game of jump rope. 

“Okay, so, Yaku talked to _you,_ what’d he say? He say anything bad about me?”

Akaashi rolled his eyes, because why wouldn’t Bokuto ask that. 

“Yes. He said you’re too _loud_ and _obnoxious_.” Akaashi splashed Bokuto, which resulted in the latter screeching.

“He also said you shouldn’t drag unsuspecting people underwater,” he splashed Bokuto again, “you psychopath.”

“I wouldn’t have let you drown! What would I do if you drowned, you’re like the only interesting person here.”

“Oh god,” Akaashi said, although he didn’t mean to. It was supposed to be a lost train of thought, not an obvious groan of approval. 

Bokuto smiled at the response like he was _aware._ He looked at Akaashi like he had galaxies painted on his cheeks with the milky-ways underlined. It was disgusting, but also made Akaashi collectively lose his shit because the sun reflected off the other boy’s eyes and made him look twenty times more eccentric than he had before. Water sprayed across his reddening shoulders and fell off his biceps, back into its original place. 

This was a bad idea. A catastrophic one, really.

“Well, you’d prosper, honestly-”

He was underwater again. What the fuck.

Akaashi thinks he made noise, but isn’t sure, because his throat was brimming with liquid and his limbs were being held by a different pair of hands this time. Bokuto tugged him back up by the hair, which was painful in itself, but the gagging fit that followed from having ingested a gallon of water felt worse. Especially when Kuroo, of all people, was looking down on him lean pathetically against Bokuto as he coughed his lung back up.

Akaashi remembered seeing a similar scene painted out on a bullying campaign poster. 

“Woah, didn’t mean to catch you so off guard,” Kuroo grinned, the smile eerily familiar. His posture was crooked and bent and his smile only stretched to half his face, like there was a string pulled one side of his mouth. Akaashi wanted nothing more but to take the string and tie it into a knot. Then, attach the knot to Kuroo’s dick and yank the fucker off.

“I’m fine,” Even if he didn’t sound fine. Akaashi didn’t really sound like himself, he sounded more like he smoked a few packs a day.

Bokuto wasn’t laughing at Kuroo’s antics, which was relieving to put it lightly. In fact, he was holding Akaashi’s shoulders to steady him in the uneven currents, if that was even possible. Akaashi wanted to push him away, because _what a position they were in,_ but also didn’t want to move in fear of _literally_ passing out. From Bokuto’s skin being directly on his, or almost being drowned for the second time that day, he didn’t know. He just felt lightheaded.

“No, really, I just thought, y’know, you weren’t paying attention, so...”

Kuroo looked nice, he didn’t look like he’d meant to send Akaashi into cardiac arrest. That was all himself.

“I was just breathing too hard,” Akaashi removed himself from Bokuto’s hands and slunk back into the water like an alligator. His eyes rose to the surface and he fought back another urge to cough up an organ.

“You were… breathing too hard,” Kuroo repeated, slowly.

“Yeah.”

Bokuto kicked Akaashi under the water, the movement unexpected. The sand under the rifts caught in his toes and helped him sink, helped him stay underwater and stationary. Kuroo’s attention drifted away again, although he stuck by the pair, his fringe dripping down his face. Unlike Bokuto’s unruly locks, Kuroo’s hair seemed to stay up, the strands fighting their counterparts to reach the sky.

In typical Bokuto fashion, he struck up a new conversation from the depths of nothing, Kuroo only following, their words too quick for Akaashi to keep up. At some point, he’d lost track and allowed himself to lean onto his back, Bokuto and Kuroo chattering excitedly at his sides. It sounded like white noise, all until he was taken out of his mini daydream.

“Oh- I forgot to ask- you’re Kenma’s Akaashi right?”

Kuroo swam closer and stood above Akaashi, even in water, where his stance is surprisingly stiff. The shorter shrunk back.

“‘ _Kenma’s’_?” 

“Yeah- like, Kenma’s friend. I see you two together all the time.”

Akaashi nodded, “He’s cool.”

Bokuto snorted and pinched Akaashi’s elbow, hidden underneath the cold. Akaashi pretended not to notice.

“He talks about you a lot,” Kuroo recognizes. Akaashi feels minimal dominance over the situation, just at the way Kuroo seems off put by his own words, and it makes Akaashi’s arm twitch. Still, his eyes widen, because Kenma doesn’t seem like the type to talk about others, whether it be affectionately or non. Akaashi only knew of Kenma’s relations to Kuroo from Bokuto, to which Kenma never seemed to ask of _how_ he knew. Then again, Kenma also knew the Russian kid, he also knew Bokuto, he knew both Miyas, and overall had a life outside of Akaashi. This was difficult to come to terms with at first.

Kenma didn’t seek to care about much, whether it be himself, judging by the bags under his eyes and excessive skinniness, or his relationships. It bothered Akaashi originally, but Kenma’s nonchalance sometimes carried into his own personal attributes, which both seemed to silently find endearing at times.

Akaashi couldn’t picture Kenma hanging out with Kuroo. They both had such colorful personalities, personalities that would clash too heavily to work out. Then again, Kenma naturally drew people to him, even if his introverted tendencies and buried anxiety made that certain to bite him back in the ass.

If Kenma was there to hear the ‘clashing personality’ portion, he’d laugh in Akaashi’s face at the irony.

“Hey,” the devil whispered in his ear.

Akaashi flinched out of his line of thought, now looking at the back of Kuroo’s dark head, which was pointed to the shore, his hand waving in greeting. A group of girls were wading in, Kuroo already kicking off to where Daishou was tossing a ball around with the Russian kid. Miya was nowhere to be found. 

“You okay?”

Akaashi felt like hugging him, which was weird, because he was supposed to be mad at Bokuto. He was supposed to want to shove Bokuto’s stupid face into the waves and forget about him. He was supposed to run away into the forest, past the suburbs, into the city, away from here. He was supposed to leave Bokuto behind, a lost memory, he was supposed to act like he didn’t know Bokuto, all because he wanted the other to feel the same vulnerability he had felt earlier.

All because he was an _ass._ A petty one.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

_Now._

Fingers curved into the spaces between the webbing, and for once, it wasn’t Akaashi’s own. His hands were tense, and Bokuto uncurled them, fitting his skin in between the spaces like he belonged there. The movement was concealed below the depths, although there likely wouldn’t be much said about it. The orange haired kid- Hinata, Akaashi had learned from their walk there- was atop Yaku’s shoulders, their hands interlinked as Daishou continued to pelt Hinata’s face with water to try and get him to drop. 

Something about their hands conjoined felt different this time. Akaashi never regularly held hands with anyone, so it might’ve been his teenager brain talking, but it felt like there was something different attached, something so much braver than other times Bokuto held his hand. It didn’t feel electric like how most romance novels stereotyped it, it didn’t feel romantic, it just felt like how it was supposed to. It felt like what clean pillows smelled like, or orange juice, or steamed broccoli, or all of the above, in that order.

Bokuto normally held his wrist, he normally held his hand with his palm. Akaashi had never felt the insides of Bokuto’s fingers before. Akaashi was smiling, he was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. 

They waded underneath the shadows of the jetty, leaning against the wooden poles. The shade felt nice.

“You do that a lot,” Bokuto noted, their hands still attached.

“Do what?”

“You clench. Is it an anxiety thing?”

Akaashi nodded, “Dunno. I don’t notice I do it. It just happens."

Bokuto leaned opposite of him, still linked, “Sorry for bringing you out here, so randomly. I know you were mad at me earlier."

God, did this kid pick up on everything? It’s not like Akaashi made it noticeable, sure, he ignored Bokuto, but he did so tastefully, so it looked like he just didn’t _hear_. 

“I wasn’t… mad. I just- you know I don’t-”

“Yeah. I do. I do know, ‘Kaashi. And I’m sorry.”

Fuck this. Fuck this so hard, fuck it so hard it bleeds. Fuck. This.

Bokuto took his fingers away, which made Akaashi’s heart clench because it was comforting. He treaded over to the shallows, where he sat crossed in the rocks, Akaashi following like there was string attached between them. The sound of sandals resonated above them, the wood forcing the sound to vibrate and become empty background noise. Akaashi sat in front of Bokuto and pulled his knees up to his chest, outlining his face with his eyes. Bokuto grabbed his hand again.

“I was kinda forced into coming, y’know. I was gonna come see you anyway, cause I haven’t seen you in like, a week.”

“It’s been two days, Kou.”

“That’s long for us.”

Akaashi used his unoccupied hand to draw shapes in the dirt and sand, the tide pressing in every few seconds and ruining his piece. Bokuto did the same, except on Akaashi’s knuckles, with his thumb.

It was scary how fine Akaashi was with it. Maybe he’d taken too many painkillers and just forgot, or something. In any other environment, where the wind didn’t feel so chilly and he could actually form a coherent thought, he might’ve thrown a tantrum.

“Your house was on the way. It was a split-second kind of decision, I asked Kuroo and he got super excited.”

Akaashi smiled at that, just at the idea of someone being happy to see him. 

“I thought maybe today would be more tolerable if you came along. Not that I don't love my friends and all,” Bokuto paused, hesitant. Akaashi waited.

“You’re better, I think,” he finished.

Akaashi almost physically doubled over to hold his heart, the beating so erratic and unpredictable it began to burn. Before he could react, Bokuto was tugging him up, still by the hand and glistening in the matted sunlight. Water pooled around their sinking feet.

“We should leave,” Bokuto notioned.

Akaashi had never agreed to something so fast. 

“Won't they like- find it weird if you just disappear?”

Bokuto nodded and tugged Akaashi over to the clump of towels and t-shirts, digging through each piece of fabric before tossing Akaashi his shirt. Without much thought on the matter, he pulled it over his shoulders, ignoring the wetness seeping into the bottom ring. His shorts were still dripping, a mixture of mud and other pieces of matter stuck to his bottom. Bokuto lifted his bag onto his shoulders and pushed Akaashi's much lighter one into the other's chest. 

“They won't notice. Mika’s group will keep them occupied.”

Akaashi glanced over to the water, where Bokuto’s group was, indeed, unaware of anything else besides skinny girls in tight bikinis. It was interesting to watch how different both sides could act around the ones they were interested in. Hinata sat on the edge of the pier with a petite blonde girl, both giggling with light pink dusted along their cheeks. Daishou had a girl with light hair on his back, swimming about, both seemingly content, his normal manipulative smile not present. 

“Gross, right?”

“Disgusting,” Akaashi agreed, imitating a gag reflex.

They laughed.

“C’mon, before Kuroo yells at me,” Bokuto grabbed Akaashi’s hand again, twining his fingers in between the spaces. The trees shaded their escape, the skin of their feet slapping against granite and concrete until the soles burned. The sidewalk was full, as for the main road, and it provided enough background noise for Akaashi’s internal battle of ‘we’re in public now, so why are you still holding my hand like that,’ to coarse through the veins in his head. 

Akaashi swore every time he touched Bokuto it still felt like the first time. The heat from the very first time Bokuto dragged him by the wrist still remained in his nerves, like a preset.

“‘Kaashi,” Bokuto asks when they’re sat on the steps of some hole-in-the-wall convenience store, gnawing on a shared box of salty crackers. Akaashi’s shorts had since dried, their sprint from the river supplying enough air movement to leave the cloth damp, at most.

Akaashi hums, little crumbs scattered along his chin.

“Thanks.”

“For?”

“I dunno, existing,” Bokuto snickered when he spoke, obviously unaware of where he wanted this conversation to lead in the first place. Their knees were touching, the snack box sitting between their feet.

“I don’t exist.”

Bokuto dropped his head onto Akaashi’s shoulder, effectively getting closer in the process. Akaashi was used to this; it still hurt. Their thighs touched now, Bokuto’s fingers brushing Akaashi’s skin every time he went to grab another cracker.

“I can’t wait to get out,” Bokuto breathed.

Akaashi leaned back onto one of the steps behind him, Bokuto moving along with him and forcing himself even closer into the juncture of his friend’s neck. Akaashi put a hand on his stomach to concentrate on breathing.

“Three more years, yeah? Then you’re gone. You can block these parts out.”

“Don’t wanna.”

Akaashi moved his head so he was looking down at Bokuto’s heap of dark hair, his head now more in his lap rather than shoulder. The shop was concealed from the sidewalk, brick alleyway walls protecting them from the outside. It felt like a separate universe, completely disconnected from only an hour earlier when they’d been surrounded by hormonal teenagers and anger management. 

He still hated Bokuto. Although the opposite of love was indifference; Akaashi assumed feeling hatred still meant he felt something towards Bokuto. You either loved or hated someone. 

Like always, Akaashi stuck himself in the center.

“You sick of me yet?” Bokuto mumbled.

Akaashi shook his head, even if he knew Bokuto couldn’t see him.

“Do you want to be?” Bokuto whispered.

His cheeks lifted without consent, Bokuto’s eyelashes flapping on the skin of his leg. 

“Yeah.”


	7. rainbows and adductors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You really need to get this shit off your face, dude. You look like you got punched.”
> 
> “You are the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

The paint wasn’t blending correctly. The brush was new, the canvas was angled at its correct degree, and even the acrylics had been opened earlier that day. What normally came easy to him, something he could actually call a skill within his overall dull palette of humanly traits, suddenly only brought more meteorites to his galaxy of a head. 

Soft symphonic music played from Akaashi’s phone, the device planted on his bed and faced forward so the speakers could release their full potential. What was supposed to look like a popped action scene, one that was supposed to have uncanny resemblance to some scene in a movie his mother made him watch, instead looked like something run over. Probably a raccoon, like completely smashed, squashed desperately into concrete. 

Less red, though, more pinks and yellows. Less gore, just a mess of bright primary colors and other mistakes alike.

Akaashi stifled a cry of defeat and sunk down into a crouch, threading his fingers through his hair. He pushed his cheeks into the space between knees, feeling the extra paint from his brush slowly weave its way from his skin and into his scalp, like shampoo. The scent of wet paint in one's hair wasn’t pleasant, but it still gave away a bit of stress relief. The t-shirt framing his chest drooped down past his collarbones and barely off his shoulders, much to his discomfort. The paint also smeared his pajama pants, long stripes of blue to add to the other abstract shapes along the fabric.

His tongue tasted bitter. With a push, he was falling backwards, onto his bedroom floor and right in the direct line of evening sunlight. His curtains, now shaded blinds with slits, casted lines of brightness across his face and body. Akaashi’s room was cold, cold enough to send goosebumps up his arms and past his neck. The ceiling looked nice, it was clear, a heavy contrast to the walls, which were vandalized by pencil led and sharpie. 

There was a knock at the door. Akaashi’s senses jumped, the sudden break in silence forcing his hair to stand up.

“I bring goods.”

Akaashi tilted his head when the knob turned, his father peeking his head in. His eyes curled when he smiled, nothing similar to what Akaashi looked like when he grinned. They had the same bitch-face, that was all.

“I got you steamed broccoli with that stinky mustard sauce you like, y’know the one. Figured we could share, I got like three boxes.”

Akaashi narrowed his eyes and his father leaned against the doorframe, gazing knowingly. They silently exchanged a few words. His father wasn’t suited, this time only in sweatpants and a faded Veteran t-shirt. He looked calm, his face wasn’t tense, which subtracted from the receding hairline.

Akaashi reminded himself that twenty-nine was, indeed, quite young to have a thirteen year old boy attached to your bloodline. The dents normally scarring the man’s face were less intricate than normal, almost emotionless, save for the piece of ambiguity behind his eyes.

“Your mom’s working late. Not gonna be home for a few more hours, probably. Figured I’d pick something up since you haven’t eaten in like three days or so.”

“Two,” Akaashi corrected.

“Whatever,” His father turned, waving his head behind his head, “We can eat on the couch, if you want. Just don’t drop anything,”

Akaashi smiled, but only a little bit, only enough to show his gratitude. He grabbed his phone, pulled himself up, and followed the man out of his bedroom, excitedly bounding downstairs to indulge in plates of soft vegetables. Two styrofoam boxes were plated along the coffee table, metal forks balanced on the top. 

“One more year, kid,” The man prodded, sinking into the couch and shuffling one of the boxes to his side of the table. The man must’ve picked up the teenage angst radiating off his son like vapor, a common parenting habit Akaashi’s parents seemed to act on fairly quickly.

Few more months until high school. Approximately three years until he could leave and take Bokuto with him, to live somewhere western with a few cats and maybe a lizard, or something else exotic. 

Not that he’s seen Bokuto. Bokuto was older, Karasuno was there for him, unlike Akaashi. There was no Bokuto on his doorstep, there was no Bokuto outside his window, the boy lived in his paintings and that was all. Watari noticed the sudden change in depth, especially when Akaashi would show up to their club and only paint the same things, over and over. Monochromatic scribbles and splatters, normally taking form of a blob.

That was it: Akaashi painted blobs. He painted blobs until his skin was dark purple and until the color wouldn’t rinse off. 

This was the effect of Bokuto’s absence. Not that they’d seen each other that often anyway, Bokuto was and will always be older, but when there’s no trace of him, did it feel like walking along a cliff with no guardrails. Akaashi usually walked home with Goshiki when Watari wasn’t around, the convenience store by their apartment complex a hang-out place for Bokuto and other upperclassmen who didn’t care if their lungs collapsed. Goshiki usually had something to say about it, something about how they were going to get jumped one of these days. Akaashi would just smile as they walked through the fits of smoke, simply because the other boys barely spared them a glance.

It was always nice to see Bokuto there, even if they didn’t speak. Bokuto wasn’t there anymore, so naturally, it ruined Akaashi’s mood every time he let himself think about it too much.

He wasn’t in his normal lunchline, he wasn’t climbing up the water heater and into Akaashi’s room, he wasn’t at his parent’s restaurant, and he wasn’t there when Akaashi wanted him to be. Bokuto wasn’t very technology oriented, so texts or calls weren’t a major part of their relationship, it was all face-to-face. One more year, one more year until he and Bokuto were together again, like it was supposed to be.

So, with his cheek swollen and eyes as angry as he could make them, Akaashi wondered if this was the renewed section of his life that only brought more self hatred. Before Bokuto came into his life and fucked everything up, before his life looked similar to the blobs Akaashi painted.

“Glad you remember me, kid.”

Akaashi did. He didn’t want to- he did.

Yoshiki twirled a piece of Akaashi’s hair on his finger, crouching down to his level. Akaashi sat with his back against the chain link fence, effectively taking on whatever Yoshiki was there to give him. Blood fell out of his nose and his forehead hurt where the elder boy’s knuckles had delivered quite the punch. There was also the cheek hit, the rib kicks, and all of the above. Akaashi didn’t give him the satisfaction of showing visible pain; he cradled his stomach with his hands, but that was all. Akaashi barely even flinched, much to Yoshiki’s vexation. 

The highschooler pulled Akaashi’s collar up, bringing their faces mere inches from each other. His smirk dug under Akaashi’s meek attempt at a grimace, pulling the expression out from the seams. Below him, the concrete caved in, forming a black hole that only pulled the rest of eternity down with it.

There was no Bokuto this time. There was no one there to help him.

“Was waiting for the fuckin’ day, dude. Sucks your boyfriend ain’t here.”

Akaashi fought back the urge to agree.

Another one to the cheek. This time, Akaashi tumbled, his hand coming to aid the fall against the ground. He didn’t know how he ended up here, truthfully. He’d left his class at the normal time, taking the same route behind the track sheds and past the park, where Satan’s offspring sat. He wasn’t waiting, but after recognizing Akaashi, this is perpetually where they ended up.

It was a strange feeling of nostalgia.

They weren’t on asphalt this time and Yoshiki’s friend wasn’t present. Plenty of students passed them, too afraid to say anything, which only made more sense in the long run. Akaashi would’ve done the same.

He guessed he deserved it almost, he was a shitty person, so he figured he might as well take it so it’d be over quicker. He glared, he glared as hard as he could, he made the effort to try and look as intimidating as possible, even if he fully understood it was nothing short of pathetic.

Bokuto’s friends were beginning to look alot more friendly. Sure, delinquents, but they wouldn’t beat someone up for the fun of it. If they deserved it, maybe, but the boy’s who implanted themselves in such a group had high standards for themselves. Yoshiki did this for fun, to fuel his own insecurity most likely. That’s the kind of bullshit people tell you from a young age, to remind you that it’s not your fault you fucked up. 

Akaashi wondered if he just attracted assholes. 

Yoshiki kicked the smaller boy, hovering over him, “Look at you. _Look at you._ Your nose is all messed up, bro.”

For the first time, Akaashi put his hands up to shield the oncoming hit. Yoshiki’s fingers prodded at his face, into the puddle of blood formed on his upper lip. When he pulled his fingers back, the older cringed in disgust, and wiped the excess on the pants of his uniform. Akaashi felt his eyes get wet, but didn’t acknowledge it. 

Whatever. It was all whatever.

Yoshiki said something, but Akaashi wasn’t listening. The sound of birds and cars honking and other variations of white noise filtered in through one ear and out the other. His face hurt. His life hurt, for god sakes.

Maybe this was Hell. Not a place, but a feeling, the conscience understanding that no one was alike Akaashi in the way he thought, in the way he felt, no one could penetrate past that layer. Everyone around him was like a separate side character as he watched himself through a mirror. He was the main character, but not in a general term. Everyone has their own protagonist, just as he does, but his was in third person and being forcefully controlled by all his past lives.

Whatever bad things he did over previous reincarnations, it was coming back to get revenge. It was all over, this was his final checkpoint, when he died, his soul would evaporate into space and form a star.

Maybe that was a good thing.

The beatings stopped and his line of vision was so blurry Akaashi didn’t understand what was going on at first. It was when he looked up into Osamu’s eyes staring down at him, that his eardrums vibrated back into focus and the tears came even harder. Akaashi didn’t cry around others, especially not around others he wasn’t familiar with, but this was an exception. 

Osamu’s hand was on his back and slowly helping him up, mumbling kind encouragements. At this, the relief made his sobs come in harsh wheezes, Akaashi’s nose pumping out even more fluid.

He looked up. The Russian kid and Atsumu were circling Yoshiki, a way of intimidation, most likely. Osamu looked at Akaashi with utmost concern, no discernment for his current state. His hand moved small, comforting circles over the shorter boy’s back muscles. 

“Hey- Lev! Just leave em’ be, let him run!” Osamu called out, sitting Akaashi out on one of the benches bordering the fence. The three boys all had loose t-shirts and socks up to their calves, the colors ranging in different shades of orange. He wished he could feel guilt for bringing them out of practice, but the solace in being rescued outweighed any other negative connotations to the matter.

The Russian kid- Lev- and Atsumu watched Yoshiki run the opposite way, past the school. There had been no physical damage done between them, Akaashi had been watching as Lev scared the other off with his presence. Atsumu stood by in support, eye-level with Yoshiki. 

Akaashi sat staring at his feet, lightheaded, flinching away from Osamu’s hand.

Then there were three standing over him- and Osamu was crouching down to his height, asking several questions at once. 

“I’m fine. I just need a tissue,” Akaashi interjected. All three soccer players stopped speaking, sparing each other glances. The twins laughed, Lev standing tall over the two with his hands in his pockets. He looked curious, like he’d never seen someone in distress before.

“You look like you’re about to throw up,” Atsumu noted.

“You’re bleeding in like four different places,” Lev agreed.

Akaashi didn’t particularly remember moving from the outside to the indoor male locker rooms- he thinks he remembers Osamu helping him walk there, but he was so far off, his lens was so out of focus, he couldn’t retain anything. His lip was bleeding, his eyebrow bone was (probably) bleeding, his nose was most definitely bleeding, his ribs hurt, his knees hurt, his everything fucking hurt. His face was flat, but behind that, fire was seeping into every nerve. It felt like Akaashi was watching acid being poured onto him, the skin around the throbbing vessels of pain only accelerating his own descent into death. 

The tile was white and clear, the floors recently waxed. Akaashi sunk down against the lockers and hugged his knees to his chest, ignoring the urge to shove his face into the juncture and suffocate himself. 

Both Miyas dug around their similar sport bags, Lev instead taking a seat onto the benches in front of Akaashi so he was knee-level. There were grass stains on the taller boy’s skin, no sign of permanent scuffle, just little scratches with dirt wedged in. 

“You didn’t need to help me,” Akaashi reassured, his right hand moving to massage his cheek. The pain didn’t subside.

“If it makes you feel any better, Lev and I were on the sides today. ‘Samu was the only one playing,” Atsumu glanced down at Akaashi with a lazy smile. Osamu lifted his hand at the mention, seemingly finding nothing of use in his bag, “I got Kags to sub for me, so don’t feel guilty.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Akaashi quickly returned.

Lev snorted and the older of the two smiled up at him.

“What was the asshole’s problem anyway?-"

Osamu swung a towel at his brother, effectively cutting him off, “Will you let him breathe?"

“I’m not trying to-! I meant, like- stop hitting me!”

Lev had his eyes trained on Akaashi’s slumped form, his fingers idly painting symbols in the bench wood. They locked eyes momentarily, both equally spaced out.

“You learn to ignore them,” Lev nodded towards the twins, still in the midst of a quarrel. “You might wanna go wash your face. They’ll be done by the time you come back out.”

“I just need a few minutes.”

With the added background noise, Akaashi stuck his legs out and rolled his sleeves up, sweat beginning to collect on his forehead. The uncomfortable feeling of dry blood stuck to his face and there was a pulse behind his eyes, surely to transform into a migraine later.

Lev’s eyes lit, “I have some heating patches to help the swelling, if you want them,” he mentioned, standing up and jogging over to the other end of the row of lockers. He dug out a box of white thermal patches and held one out, to which Akaashi took. It would probably be too big for his cheek, but he’d still take it. The packaging was made of plastic and the inside was clumpy, like a candy bag. There was a direction list and a row of risks on the front, which did nothing to aid the shorter boy’s curiosity.

“I use them for my adductors cause‘ I pull them so much. It’ll just make you go numb for a little while.”

Akaashi nodded like he knew what an adductor was and continued to read the labels, tossing the bag from one hand to the other. His conscience was slowly coming back into his body, the initial shock wearing off. 

“They look like smoking patches,” he voiced, which he honestly didn’t mean to say out loud. It still got a laugh out of Lev, who nudged his foot in agreement. 

“I have those too, if you want them.”

“I’m good, thank you.”

Osamu dropped down next to him and slapped Akaashi’s knee, who flinched back. Atsumu leaned over and analyzed his face, the resemblance between the two twins uncanny. Seeing them both up close, it was like looking into a double sided mirror, same haircuts and everything. 

Him and Atsumu spoke more now that they were in the same class. When Akaashi first stepped into the third year classrooms, Atsumu spoke to him like they’d been introduced previously, which took a bit of adjusting. He wasn’t bad, every so often he’d prick the back of Akaashi’s neck with his pencil or ask for assignment answers, but overall he wasn’t bothersome. This Atsumu was much more laid back than the Atsumu with Bokuto, which was something they could’ve bonded over, if the subject was brought up.

“Couldn’t find any tissues, but the toilets have paper towels I think,” Atsumu picked at his fingernails, “I have some Band-Aids, but I don’t know if they’ll do much, with your, uh, condition.”

A boy in a similar sports uniform appeared in the locker room doorway, his hand balancing him, “Hey, you guys needa’ hurry up- _what the fuck._ ”

Akaashi waved.

Atsumu jumped up, “This is the kid! The one we saw out by the fence-”

Osamu reached out and slapped his brother on the shoulder, “He has eyes, dipshit.”

They launched into another argument while the boy in the doorway conveyed an obvious face of confusion, some uncertainty, before stepping back and turning the opposite way.

“I’ll go tell Tora you’re…” the boy trailed off.

Lev stood up, brushing his hands on his shorts, “Akaashi is fine, right? The guy outside seemed to be long gone-”

“Stop trying to kiss Yamamoto’s ass, he won’t care if we’re gone a while,” Atsumu uttered.

Akaashi stared at the Russian boy, momentarily trying to rack his brain of any encounter that would’ve given Lev the chance to learn his name. The blood was still on his face, his body wasn’t in the mood to be moved, and as someone who usually didn’t care for others time or lack thereof, he felt like the people around him didn’t deserve to be watching over him. He could make it home and sleep for the next week if he needed to. 

“You two should go. I can get him home,” Osamu offered. The other two looked back to the boy in the doorway, shrugged, and while Atsumu got himself up, Lev busied himself with making dry conversation with the unnamed boy. The three leave, just before Atsumu calls out a ‘you’re welcome, by the way,’ which Osamu glared at. What Akaashi felt would be a sibling rivalry, seemed much less, much more lighthearted. There obviously wasn’t anything harsh between them. With the sudden lack of people, Akaashi felt the tense sensation making its way up his limbs slowly fade, with just Osamu there to support him.

“You really need to get this shit off your face, dude. You look like you got punched.”

“You are the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

The two snickered as Akaashi pulled himself up, Osamu there to aid him. He shoved the thermal patch into the space between the top of his uniform and his bottoms, lightly limping over to the connected bathrooms. 

The water felt nice on his face, even if it stung. Akaashi scrubbed his hands up and down his skin, his back protesting at the sudden change in angle. Osamu appeared with a handful of brown paper towels and reached out to dry off the wetness for his friend.

“I saw you cry today,” Osamu smirked.

“Okay, whatever, bitch,” he responded, turning away, hiding the smile slowly rising. Osamu moved Akaashi’s chin back into place, wiping the rest of the problem areas. He tossed the towels into the bin and unwrapped the heating pad, sticking the piece onto Akaashi’s left cheek. The feeling set in almost instantly, the tingles running about his blood stream.

“Y’know, Lev, the really tall one, he was the one who saw it at first. He was coming back from the bathroom, I think. He came back screamin’ that some kid was getting his ass handed to him.”

There was no acknowledgment. 

“Can I ask what happened, like what set the guy off?” Osamu continued, making his way back into the locker room. He zipped his bag back up and pulled a hoodie over his head. Akaashi watched, rubbing the thermal patch into place as if it would speed up the process.

He was going to get hell for this later. This was worse than the first time- he was on the receiving end. No one had ever made him bleed before, it was all just verbal torment, mostly towards his persistence on art, or the way he spoke, the way he acted, etc. 

That was what it was like before Bokuto happened.

Physical disagreements during school were always going to continue, whether Bokuto was there or not. Akaashi was quiet, he wasn’t short, but he was thin in stature. He was an easy target, which was annoying his first year, but junior high boys often tend to not do much more than stuff one’s gym clothes in a toilet. It happened to Kenma too, but likewise, there was no Kenma anymore. He lived by the mountains now, which was much more desolate and less city. It fit Kenma, he seemed happy to move there, even if Akaashi’s visits were monthly and usually consisted of them sleeping the days away.

The issues he had with others was cutback when Kenma was around, just because Kenma knew so many people. Bokuto was also there to help in these certain issues, even if it took a bit of interrogation for Akaashi to open up about them. 

And like a broken record: there was no one there for him anymore.

“I don’t know what happened.”

Osamu ogled, obviously overanalyzing the situation. Akaashi followed him out into the hallway and back out of the gym, where the sky folded on top of them. Teams were grouped outside by the track now, all resuming their afternoon practices. Osamu stuck his fingers into the chainlink, pulling the fence back and forth lightly. 

“So, what, the guy just came and attacked you?”

“Yeah,” Akaashi returned with almost no hesitation. He prided himself in riling others up, so he wouldn’t have been afraid to take the blame here. There was no blame to take.

They walked beside the street, motionless without the influx of cars and pedestrians. The shops nearby were all quiet, the work rush ended. Akaashi focused on the pain segregated to his face so he could walk correctly, without the aching in his stomach pulling his legs down. 

Osamu didn’t let it drop, “People don’t just-”

“Just shut _up_. You don’t know anything.”

The sudden outburst from a wide known wallflower shocked Osamu at first, his expression giving it away. He stopped moving, his face turned toward Akaashi, who kept walking, because his resolve of not giving a shit was slowly slipping. He couldn’t let that happen, even if he wanted to, not here in the middle of the city, where personalities were handed out like strings of meat.

“Akaashi, what’s wrong? You can tell me, you know that right?”

Akaashi shook his head, Osamu’s shoes hitting the concrete behind him in an attempt to keep up.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault, I’m just concerned-” the twin began.

“I _know_ it wasn’t my fault. I just wish it _was_.”

Osamu looked like someone told him the act of time traveling was relevant. 

Akaashi turned to the other boy, their height similar enough to where they were eye-level. Osamu stopped, fumbling with the strap of his bag. 

“This happens a lot.”

Osamu choked, “I see you almost everyday- _this_ does not happen a lot.”

“It’s not your fucking problem! I already said thank you for stepping in, isn’t that enough for your massive ego?” Akaashi cried, letting the strained pull of his muscles do the talking for him. His legs had no energy to leave the boy beside him, it kept him stationary. Osamu did his best to look as if the eruption was normal, like the Akaashi he saw on a daily basis wasn’t the one standing ahead of him.

Osamu followed, and didn’t stop following. He kept a safe distance until Akaashi let himself cry again, out in the middle of the street, where Osamu was still there to take the worst part of it. He was serving as a pillar, a bookmark, just until Akaashi’s original column of strength returned.

It was dramatic, surely, but neither seemed to care.

Osamu held back mentioning Akaashi’s lack of gratitude. He never once said thank you, although for some reason, the soccer player understood why and didn't pry.

Surprisingly, it was easy enough to keep the injuries from his parents. Osamu, bless him, took the few extra laps around the neighborhood when asked, just because Akaashi knew his father would pop a blood vessel if he saw the damage done. After an hour, when Osamu wouldn’t quit whining about his knees hurting, Akaashi bid his goodbyes, actually said thank you, and put his many hours of sneaking out to use.

There was no television on when he stepped inside, only the noises of laughter and dishes clinking. The steady sound of the sink from the kitchen also bellowed out, overlapping the noise of the front door lock clicking. His parents weren’t bickering today, which might’ve been an improvement in any other child’s eyes, but it deemed a loss in Akaashi’s. 

In the mirror, there was a splotch of red lined up along his ribcage, the irritation slowly fading to purple. The bathroom door was sealed, towels stuffed up against the bottom to ensure there would be no chance of entry. 

His mother had a hobby of picking the lock when Akaashi was in the bathroom for too long, since there was only one in the whole house. He’d since learned from the first few times she’d walked in on him in some compromising positions.

This had nothing to do with hormonal actions, though- if either heads of the household saw what Yoshiki did, it would be less punishment and more condescension under how Akaashi should’ve stuck up for himself more. His father might enroll him in a military school, and his mother would find some way to make it about herself.

He’d rather not deal with it.

With the bath full, Akaashi sunk in and pulled his knees to his chest. He grabbed his phone off the toilet seat and took a glance at his messages. There was a notification from Watari asking where he was- Akaashi doesn’t remember being informed of a club meeting today- and a few from Kenma. Akaashi quickly pulled up a new number, typing out three simple words.

_i miss you_

The response was only a few seconds later, much to Akaashi’s surprise. 

_i miss you too_

Akaashi thought there was a weight, so heavy on his stomach it was vomit inducing. When the message was shown through the glass, almost like Bokuto was waiting, the weight lifted. Everything felt thinner but also satisfactory in lines of congestion, like a glass half full/empty analogy. 

_‘are you ok?’_ He quickly typed out.

This time, there was no response. Akaashi studied the earlier message Bokuto had sent, any reference back to what the manic boy feels, and it gave him a never ending streak of relief.

The worst scenarios always went through Akaashi’s head when Bokuto became distant, when he went through his week-long episodes that resulted in him climbing into Akaashi’s window at four in the morning because he couldn’t stand being alone. Separation was something both of them didn’t enjoy, even at school, or when one of them would go away to visit family, when their link of connection seemed to sever. It was like Bokuto was a separate apparition that followed Akaashi around, like a shadow, so when the sun left, when he wasn’t there anymore, it was like he was missing that second half.

A month. It had been a month since they'd seen each other.

Stepping out of the tub, a sudden vision of the past few weeks events recollected into tiny fragments in his mind. A timeline, strung along by a mixed row of mistakes and accomplishments. 

He was still staring at the phone, without realizing it. 

Morning came strictly through stolen melatonin pills, snatched directly from his father’s nightstand. The thermal patch from Lev peeled off like a Band-Aid and the sheer force of the resin attached embedded red lines into his cheek. The swelling did, in fact, go down, and the aching was more touch friendly. A bruise began to form from the edge of Akaashi’s eye and down his cheekbone, less purple, more red and irritated, subject of the several blows to one spot.

He looked like a mess. 

Akaashi stared down the painting sitting against his wall, half-finished and vandalized from a surge of anger. That previous weekend, a set reminder of artists block and moral hatred for pigment of any sort, stared back at him.

He inhaled, kicked the canvas so it broke down the center, and crawled back into bed.

Several hours passed and when the insistent gnawing of his internal organs became unbearable, he slipped on sneakers and a shirt without the spaghetti stains. The hunger in his limbs carried him downstairs, out the front door. The outside was gray, there was still no text from Bokuto, and Miya Atsumu was sitting on the steps by his front porch.

“Why are you here?” Akaashi asked, slipping past him. They didn’t acknowledge each other, the twin stepping up and following. 

“You didn’t show up today.”

“So you’re here now?”

The boys matched paces. Akaashi held back the inevitable ‘why isn't Osamu here instead?’ comment.

“Just wanted to make sure you’re alive.”

Akaashi didn’t respond.

“How’s the cheek?”

“You ask really stupid fucking questions.”

The neighborhood was eerily quiet, no wind to accommodate the weather and no sign of other human life. Houses, buildings rose up around them, the clouds shading any natural light. 

Akaashi didn’t know the time, he didn’t remember getting out of bed, or falling back asleep. For a fleeting second, it didn’t feel like he was there, walking along the sidewalk, some kid he barely knew skipping beside him.

“Why’d you stay home? Classes are lonely without you,” Atsumu seeked.

“My head hurt.”

A store came up into view, much less flamboyant than it used to be. Signs along the outside were tilted and faded, the vending machines were mostly empty, and the windows were all glossed over with filth. The inside was communal and homey, still, even if the scent of cigarette smoke and cheap meats volumized the majority of the store. In his daze, Akaashi wandered down to the last aisle and picked up a pack of cheesy ramen.

Without thinking, he stuffed it into his underwear band and pulled his shirt over the suspicious lump.

Atsumu narrowed his eyes, “You know, I can help you pay-”

“Lets just go.”

They did. The street was the same as it was before, still gray, still murky, still empty. 

“Why are you still following me?” Akaashi mumbled, only loud enough for the wind to carry the sound to Atsumu, who’d taken a few paces behind him.

“I don’t know. I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Don’t you have friends?”

Atsumu laughed, although it was sad, “That’s where you’re wrong.”

Akaashi slowed so they were walking side by side, so close their elbows were touching, “Yeah. I guess so.”

“We’re friends, right?”

“Nope.”

They sat on one of the sidewalk’s curbs, trees throwing leaves onto the concrete. 

“I miss my old friends,” Atsumu stated, as if that was something Akaashi could relate to.

“Make new ones.”

“It’s not that simple.

“Tell me about it.”

And before he could hold it back, Akaashi let out, “Do you miss Bokuto?”

Atsumu got quiet, so quiet Akaashi didn’t believe it at first. With how much he’d heard about this boy, with how much Osamu put him down, with how much he spoke around the presence of others, it seemed impossible for him to fully shut down the way he did. Akaashi slouched over his knees and propped his uninjured cheek onto his hand.

“Well yeah, I miss all of them. They were the only things I looked forward to. I still have Lev, but he’s a second year for God’s sake,” Atsumu spoke with his hands, similar to his brother. His voice cracked at the end of his sentence.

“None of them talk to me anymore. I don’t know what I did, I thought they all liked me. It’s been like, what, a few months? They probably think they’re the shit cause' they're old now.”

There was crippling sympathy from Akaashi’s end, simply because he knew exactly how he felt. Atsumu sounded less sorrowful and more angry, like he was prepared to knock any of them on their ass if the opportunity arose. 

“You know- you, kinda, have this vibe, Akaashi. It’s like, you don’t really give a shit about what anyone says about you, that’s what Osamu always says. I always thought you were just super fucking awkward.”

Akaashi snorted, because yeah, basically.

“I think we could’ve been really good friends if you weren’t so spaced out all the time,” Atsumu pondered.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

It was a passive aggressive insult, most definitely, but he didn’t care. Akaashi didn’t know why people with problems were always drawn to him; he couldn’t give less than a shit about what Atsumu felt, especially when his god complex was pulled so tight it stuck forty feet up his ass. The response Atsumu got seemed to only clarify his words, since Akaashi didn’t seem to be listening.

And as if whatever spiritual being looking down on them had a bad luck streak, loud, squeaky voices trailed over the road’s fences and into their ears. This time, Akaashi’s attention was strictly faced toward the voices, because he’d heard the same ones so many times, it had to of been burned into his memory.

“Speak of the devil. You knew they were gonna be here?” Atsumu sounded betrayed, although the quirk of his mouth gave away the tiniest bit of satisfaction he seemed to be laboring.

Akaashi couldn’t speak. His tongue was being yanked in four different directions.

This was _their_ place anyway, this was the mob’s territory, this store, this shop full of stolen goods. It was practically made for this shit. Atsumu, leaning back on his hands, flashed a smile at the oncoming group of boys, and as Akaashi watched the grin morph into an expression of pure horror, he couldn’t hold back the laugh forcing its way out.

The mob had more than just the previous third years- there were at least ten of them.

Akaashi counted heads, most unknown faces, although Kuroo and Yaku stuck out like sore thumbs. Atsumu, almost on instinct, drifted closer to Akaashi’s side, as if he hadn’t been calling him antisocial moments before that. Both boys curled into themselves, watching as the group approached. Kuroo had someone's arm thrown around his shoulder and Yaku, as strange as it may seem considering his overall young appearance, had linked hands with a girl.

Bokuto was hidden in the back, grinning and completely free range. 

And as if Akaashi’s eyes couldn’t deceive him any further, attached to Bokuto’s arm was a much shorter female specimen with light eyes and a pretty smile. They spoke beyond the group, hushed words with giggles between the two, like it was a secret. Their fingers were intertwined, they were what highschoolers should look like, what others said highschool should be.

Akaashi understood long ago that whatever he and Bokuto had wasn’t supposed to move past what it already was. He _knew_ that. He just hadn’t expected the confirmation on that to come as quickly as it did.

“They really do think they’re the shit,” Atsumu noted, leaning back even further. His chest was puffed out as a form of confidence, even if Akaashi could see the desperation leaking out of the other kid like a straw.

All he could get out was a soft, “What the fuck.”


	8. crumby ramen and its counterparts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re friends, okay?” Atsumu mumbled into his mouth, just before disappearing into the fleeting sky light. His hood flapped behind him as he ran, far but not far enough.

In essence, that was Bokuto, and if the context of the situation was taken clearly, he had a girlfriend. A companion. Someone that wasn’t Akaashi by any means, which caused a tremor in itself, but the added pinch of outside air and the boisterous teenage giggles coming closer by the second only added more strain.

Akaashi was sure he was mildly unrecognizable in his state, and to disguise himself even further, he purposely sat closer to his associate beside him. Atsumu, seemingly one step ahead of him, pulled the back of his hoodie over his head and tugged the strings tight. They both looked at each other in understanding.

Under the hood, the kid whispered, “I am going to file a secondhand class action lawsuit against you.” Atsumu popped out a lighter from one of his pockets and stuck a cigarette in between his lips, the flame cracking to life with a snap of his thumb. Smoke drifted out from his nostrils and the tab was held between his two fingers.

Akaashi snickered, even if there wasn’t anything remotely funny about the situation, “I didn’t know. Can’t blame me.”

What proved to be a simple task originally, junk food theft, something he’d grown good at through the years, laughed back at Akaashi with weighed cockiness. It was like the store understood the illegality of their predicament, especially with the several demon incarnations varying in energy level barely a few feet away from them.

“Why don’t you want to talk to them?” Akaashi asked.

Atsumu looked horrified.

“Are you suicidal? Like, is that your people-killing shirt, or something, do you enjoy killing people in that shirt?”

With brief confusion, Akaashi glanced down at the ragged neckline and baggy red sleeves thrown over his wrists. It was sarcasm, but not flagrant enough to be funny. He hung his hands limply by his sides, the dirt and grime from the sidewalk coating his fingertips. He turned his head so he was facing the group of highschoolers, hidden just well enough they wouldn’t be able to make out the details.

When a few quiet seconds passed, he said, “You definitely like vivid, exciting people.” Akaashi observed the group make entry to the store, all joyful and cheery, unlike the wafting rain cloud the two boys formed around themselves as a way of protection.

As conceited as it was, all Akaashi wanted in that moment was for Bokuto to feel the same emotional strain he, himself, had. Then again, the latter had already proved via text message that there was something there, even if it was brief, like being shot. The initial sting was already gone, but still left a nasty after taste.

Bokuto _missed_ him. That was enough.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Atsumu scoffed, humorous.

The shorter gawked, “Funny of you to think I’d ever describe myself in such a way. I meant _them_ , you know, like Kuroo and Yaku.” Akaashi turned, pointedly ignoring the meaning behind Atsumu’s implication.

With a push, the last girl, the one with Bokuto, stood on the threshold between the door and sidewalk. There were two lanes of pavement, likely for the increased pedestrian traffic that street got over certain hours, even if it was mainly deserted around this time. The girl was staring in the duo’s general direction, as if she wanted to speak to them. The space inducing the separation was enough to be comfortable, but still tense in atmosphere.

Atsumu threw one menacing glare over his shoulder, the cigarette light between his teeth, and the girl skittered away past the doors. She had a light, playing smile when she’d turned away, like she was intentionally plotting something.

“That a trick you learn in juvenile?” Akaashi poked Atsumu’s side.

The hunched boy tugged the strings of his jacket and plucked the cigarette out of his mouth. The addictive substance soon found its place on the ground, under his foot, once he got bored of it.

He laughed sarcastically, shoulder checking the other boy, “I barely even looked at her. Still, she’s gotta get used to shit like that if she’s hangin’ out with _them.”_

The message of his tone had Akaashi on the edge of his seat, inspecting Atsumu carefully. “I’m starting to think you’re not telling me something.”

As a way of subject avoidance Atsumu mumbled, “Why wouldn’t you describe yourself that way?”

At first, it sounded like a mode of continued conversation, since Atsumu seemed good at that sort of thing.

“You mean, like, exciting?” Akaashi asked, referring back to what he’d mentioned earlier.

Atsumu nodded, holding a staring contest with the rogue cigarette butt.

“Well, I’m not.”

“I think you’re exciting. You’re hanging out with someone like me, I think that’s kinda living on the edge, no?”

Akaashi was stunned, simply because he never heard anyone refer to themselves as ‘someone like _that,_ ’ and so shamelessly mean it.

“Someone like you?” he urged.

“Well, yeah. I don’t know what it is with you and broken people,” Atsumu mused, quietly, and into his sleeve.

The sentence made almost no sense the first time Akaashi let the words run through his mind, but the more he thought about it, the more he understood. 

Atsumu continued when there was no response, “Maybe it’s because you like putting people back together or something.”

“That shouldn’t be my job, though,” Akaashi slouched, hugging his knees and placing his chin into his elbow. 

The air went quiet, cars passing with scratchy wheels. He played the conversation through his mind several times, trying to recite every word, just to decipher it. Reasons as to why they’d gone to such a sullen topic, although Atsumu didn’t seem particularly sad when going on his rant. He was speaking how he always did, like he could give in more effort to the things he did, but didn’t want to. That was the whole premise of Atsumu Miya, in a sense, was to be perpetually bad at the things he was good at.

Akaashi wondered what his factual prologue was. He didn’t think it strayed very far from this moment, right here.

“You know, I think it depends on the person. I think everyone has their own problems and ways to deal with them, and I think a lot of people find that resolution in others. Maybe that’s why you do your art, you just don’t like other people.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Akaashi mumbled into his skin.

“You have any other friends than me?”

“We’re not friends. And yes, obviously.”

Atsumu smirked under his hood, pressing his thigh closer to Akaashi’s, “Who? Osamu? _Lev?_ ”

With a groan, he buried himself even further into his arms, inching away from Atsumu, who only seemed to come closer with each growing second, “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not, I’m just pointing out the obvious. You _found_ that person to help you, and now that he’s _gone_ you have no one. You’re all by yourself because you refuse to let others talk to you like normal human beings,” Atsumu poked at his fingers, one by one, the teasing tone overlapping any further implications.

Akaashi felt the ground slowly swallow him up whole. The cavity kept growing wider as Atsumu’s pinky wrapped onto his own, and it reached absolutely astronomical lengths when he dropped his head onto Akaashi’s shoulder. The disgust in his face was present in a grimace, which only aided Atsumu even further. The comfort level was already past it’s limit, which projected a bit of numbness to the situation.

He couldn’t breathe. 

“I’m friends with Osamu. We’re friends, I think. I have people from the art club...” Akaashi trailed off, his voice close to a stutter. The closeness made his head turn to fog, mist seeping in through every pore and out onto the road.

Atsumu smiled into his collarbone, close enough Akaashi could smell the lilac and smoke in his hair. 

Atsumu looked like he smelled like lilac.

The store’s entrance opened behind them and both boy’s pulled themselves even tighter, as if to hide themselves. Akaashi expected the taller to pull away, to yank his hood even tighter or even light another cigarette, but the boy stayed with no movement. His limbs were basically on top of Akaashi’s, and as much as he hated himself for it, there made no urge to move away. 

Of all the people Akaashi had expected to be this close with, Miya Atsumu was nowhere on that list. There was only one other slot, and it was already taken by someone who obviously wasn’t competent for the position. Akaashi didn’t think his brain was processing this correctly, he thought he was overthinking again, and that this wasn’t actually happening. Atsumu could just be friendly, like how Bokuto always was, a major lapse in their friendship, sure, but still a personality trait that could be overlooked.

“They’re all assholes. Every single one of them. They don’t care about anyone but themselves,” Atsumu whispered into his neck, the breath scalding hot, even with the added shivers fall time brought up his neck.

Akaashi didn’t respond- he was too afraid of his voice.

Noise elevated directly behind them, amongst which a shrill shoot of laughter forced its way out of a particularly colorful set of lungs. Atsumu pulled away slightly, still tucked in between the juncture of Akaashi’s neck and shoulder. The urge to vomit worked its way up through his stomach, stopping directly between his throat and chin, just where Atsumu was smiling like whatever was happening was completely scripted out in his head.

Akaashi felt the smile on his skin, like a bee sting. 

“Your ramen is probably crushed.”

There was a hum, probably not from Akaashi, but it could’ve been.

He felt around for the little package, broken in half, and crumby from the inside. Atsumu, still leaning desperately on Akaashi, pushed himself up and stretched his back. The sky reflected off his head, afternoon sun dipping behind the clouds and off into the distance. The star lined up with his head, and like a silhouette, Atsumu turned dark and threatening.

The soft smile playing at his lips turned Akaashi’s insides to mush and tossed the original thought out the window; sure, this kid was manipulative and had a mean spirit, but also wasn’t living up to the expectations Osamu put into Akaashi’s head.

That was a given from the start, even though the more Atsumu spoke, the more Akaashi saw the gloss lining his exterior begin to rip.

“Come on, it’s getting cold,” Atsumu grinned, holding out his hand for Akaashi to take. 

He did, and as a rebuttal for earlier, Akaashi bumped their legs together as they walked, doing the most to trip Atsumu. He didn’t get why there had to be a rebuttal, even if the flush on his cheeks spoke volumes.

By the bridge, the air turned crisp, low rifts of water floating beneath them. The sound of a stranger’s phone call filtered into their ears, a short salaryman with a navy suit. He looked bittersweet, his face was kind, yet his demeanor was angry and bothered as he passed. Atsumu was far away in his mind, eyes focused somewhere off the overpass and among the trees coating the hills. Akaashi strived to be that calm and untouchable, like the other was invincible.

Outside Akaashi’s house, the air twisted around their arms and drew them together. The walk had been fairly quiet and equally pleasant, not uncomfortable like how he’d expected it to be. The empty look Atsumu had doubled for something more intricate, like he was hiding something, but there was still no malice. 

Akaashi wondered if there was a cell keeping certain parts of himself closed away. The parts he was too afraid to address, simply because he didn’t know how to approach them. They were the parts that stuck out over morning breakfast with his mother, or at night when he had nothing but himself and a box of tissues.

Atsumu had been completely quiet until then, until he spun Akaashi around and smothered his mouth with his own.

It was the parts Akaashi had never expected to see, fully, almost like a dream. It was a brief notion of _what if_ but never a set thought. Especially to the person in front of him, someone who had a girlfriend, someone he’d only known for a few months, who never showed interest in such a way until that moment.

As normal shock came, it didn’t register at first, and Atsumu took it as a sign to do more. He put his hands onto Akaashi’s sides and pushed forward, harsh enough the shorter had to put his foot back to balance himself. When the nerves around his mouth began to operate correctly again, Akaashi set his palms against Atsumu’s sternum and dragged them up his hoodie to keep himself from falling. The twin didn’t pull away, still, and plunged his tongue past the unsuspecting boy’s lips.

The cell was distanced, almost like the light you see at the end of the tunnel. For some reason, this experience, their current position, made it sharply turn, this time barreling into Akaashi’s stomach and twisting the strings counter clockwise.

Whatever kissing was supposed to be like, not that he had any knowledge in that area, was most definitely not supposed to be like this.

When they did finally separate, Akaashi was gripping Atsumu’s front, without knowing it. He pulled away, heaving, light-headed, and not in a good way, not the way you’re supposed to feel after eating someone else’s face. Atsumu, laughing and smirking like he’d won a tournament, bent forward to catch Akaashi and pull him back up.

They did it again, but this time Akaashi was self-aware and more conscious. He let his mouth actually move, even if everything inside of him was screaming that they’d be seen, that he didn’t want his first kiss to be with Atsumu of all people, even if it momentarily felt like the entire world revolved around him, but not in an affectionate way. In his mind, it was less of a social construct, he’d never cared about first kisses before, but this didn’t feel like a first kiss. Atsumu knew what he was doing, he planned his movements with precision and thought.

Akaashi had never visualized Atsumu to be the one looking down at him, the one holding his face between his hands and smoothing his fingertips into the back of his hair. Akaashi didn’t know how to kiss properly and apparently Atsumu found this funny, chuckling into the tiny bit of drool collecting by the edge of Akaashi’s mouth when they parted.

Neither of them spoke, the lamp post above them, illuminating the heat cultivating from their forms, did the talking. Dust and bugs rotated around the glass, flying past their faces and into the neighboring houses.

Atsumu wasn’t the person he wanted to do this with, and before the kiss actually happened, Akaashi didn’t think he’d wanted to do this with anyone, regardless of gender or human fabricate. The idea of kissing romantically, especially with someone he’d barely known apart from the things he’d heard from other people, almost made his knees buckle. Atsumu wasn’t the one he’d shared most of the positive parts of his life with, Atsumu was just there. Atsumu, the one who invited himself over and impulsively decided to ruin everything.

A vein popped in his wrist, the separation dry and empty.

“We’re friends, okay?” Atsumu mumbled into his mouth, just before disappearing into the fleeting sky light. His hood flapped behind him as he ran, far but not far enough.

Akaashi didn’t know what else to do, so he pulled some of the fabric from the edge of his shirt into his hand and wiped ferociously at his mouth to try and rid the bitterness Atsumu had put there.

He sunk into a crouch, the concrete scratchy and uncomfortable underneath the skin. When he willed himself to get up, he tugged the remains of his legs inside, to where his father sat alone on the couch and his mother stirred soup in a pot, the thick stench wafting through the doorways. Akaashi lifted his hand to his mouth to cover up the heat, as if the adults in his house could see the remnants of the kiss, like a lipstick stain.

The man on the couch would come up to him and say, _‘You kissed a boy? Disgusting’_ and Akaashi would then proceed to become one with the wooden floors as he disintegrated. 

The dread flooded every part of himself, in the form of questions: could he tell anyone about this? Could he tell anyone he _liked_ it? Could he tell Osamu?

It was everything combined into one day, every negative emotion he’d had wrapped into a roll of stuck mentality. Standing stiff in the doorway of the house he grew up in, Akaashi forgot he was just bordering fourteen, plainly because his entire existence felt like a midlife crisis.

Between the walls of his bedroom, he ripped down the several sketches of human anatomy and threw them out his window. Some had spiky hair, others had long waves that curled around the model’s waist and smoothed along the shaded ground in rifts, like water. The tape on the backs of the thick paper took off bits of paint from the walls, leaving splotches of white drywall creamy. 

There was no canvas to destroy, just posters ripped out of magazines and printer paper with scribbles. The kiss on his mouth was still alive, and it made him angry, so angry he clawed lines down the sides of the collages on the inside of his door. The tape holding the photos up turned down in distress, little fingernail lines raking through the thin paper. 

He’d never been as infuriated as he was then, his face red and steaming.

He sunk down into a crouch and pulled the ramen packet out of his pants, projecting it across the room with the rest of any optimisn he might’ve had that day. Akaashi’s hands shook out of panic, unknowing of what he was supposed to do with the information he’d gathered from earlier experiences.

An arm draped over his shoulders when he began to cry, the tears supplying momentary understanding for what he was doing. He didn’t know what else to do to let off steam, he wasn’t one for showing much emotion, especially when it came to shitty boys and their tendencies to lack any emotional apprehension for consent. Akaashi liked to bottle things up, show his anger or sadness through streaks of color.

Bokuto was a streak of color, he was like looking at a piece of abstract art that took only the greatest of piece interpretation to believe that he was beautiful. Akaashi, well versed in interpreting weird shit, saw him as exactly that.

Atsumu was like a statue you see in a museum that suddenly began to move on its own accord. The statue, when unmoving, was what Akaashi thought Atsumu was, the Atsumu who made rooms of people laugh at his stupidity, the Atsumu who balanced on street rails with lines of girls and smoked until his lungs collapsed. It was the person Atsumu used to be in the eyes of innocence.

The statue, when moving, was the Atsumu that shocked each piece of hair on Akaashi’s scalp into going rigid. 

“You’re okay, breathe, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

His father’s voice had never been soft, it was always cold and sharp. It had that edge that a businessman needed, it was how he’d always spoken to Akaashi, when he did actually speak.

No one had seen the bruise yet. The one on his face or the one in his mind, both were hidden, but it was too late now, too late to hide much else.

And just because of that, for the first time since he became too big to hold, he let himself fall into his father’s arms and make disgusting noises that left snot running up and down his shirt. The room had become dark, shadows curling among the walls in the worst ways, thin fingers reaching along the wood and poking at the boy and his sadness.

Too bored of himself, sick of his mind and the pictures formed within it. He was tired of the aching in his face and the feelings he had towards his best friend and the feelings he wished he could have towards the people who were willing to accept him. 

Akaashi didn’t show up to school the remainder of the week; he thought he saw Atsumu standing outside his window at one point, past the short fence and the line of naked branches. As a response, he buried himself further into his pillow and ignored the rotting in his stomach.

The monday after it all, his mother unlocked his door with a pin and shrunk down to his bed’s level. Akaashi’s head was covered by blankets and the room only produced light stolen from the hallway, bright and intrusive. He knew what she was going to say before she said it, so he put on a sickly face and turned over.

“You need to go. You’ve missed almost a week,” came her voice, shrill and the last thing he wanted to hear. It was still early enough she hadn’t left for her shift, which surprised him, because she was normally gone by then. 

“I don’t feel well.”

She put the back of her hand on his forehead and he fought the urge to bite it off.

“Is it because of the boy? The one that did… this to you?” Her fingers ghosted over the bruise, now yellowing. She pulled her hand away, along with the comforting tone of air, and turned into the doorway. Adjusting the apron tied around her waist, she huffed, “You look fine. You’ll be fine. Get up, there’s leftover ramen from last night, I even wrapped it for you.”

Once the door shut and he was alone again, Akaashi pulled himself up, blinking at the dizziness accompanied by it. His back was slick with sweat, the shirt pulled tight and stained a few shades darker from where his stiff position hadn’t moved. The room smelled fresh when he was covered, and once he ascended, the air began to stink of someone who hadn’t showered in several days. There was an inkling of paint somewhere in there, then maybe the smell of socks.

It was quiet when he tripped downstairs, the windows locked and the wind still. Akaashi peeked his head into the kitchen and let his eyes glance down at the bowl wrapped in tin foil, its edge balanced on one of the counters. A jacket was carelessly thrown over one of the table chairs and there were shoes by the back door, but no sign of anyone else.

Akaashi made a point to flick off the ramen, then left with his shoes untied and his shirt untucked.

He wasn’t expecting the attention he got for it. He was a piece of crumpled paper that traveled from one bin to the next, in his mind, that was his ranking. Everything that led up to him walking through long, crowded hallways with eyes glued to the yellowing mark split across his face, from riding the train to carelessly tossing his shoes into the lockers, none of it made sense. The eyes on him were dramatic, carelessly thrown about the thin walls and landing back on him.

Nothing made sense. Akaashi kept his eyes on the floor and sunk into the seat, ignoring the stare Atsumu drilled into the back of his head the moment he entered.

He said something, but nothing intelligible. Nothing worth listening to.

When the bell rang and everyone turned toward the front, there was still that itching in the back of his mind, the itching that everyone was looking at him. The instructor, a plump, friendly woman, gazed sympathetically. Without realizing it, Akaashi’s hand had lifted to the mark, a reminder of the problem, a reminder of the girl in the back of the class who would every so often glance in his direction. A reminder of the fingers grazing the back of his neck, nails stubby and thin.

“Akaashi-san?” A soft voice mumbled.

He lifted his eyes. Everyone was looking at him. There were books open on desks when he peered around the room, catching different brown eyes accidentally. The desk in front of him was empty and flat, a pencil curved in the corner, with nothing to accommodate it. 

“Did you hear what I said?” The teacher questioned.

Akaashi shook his head, the tight skin over his skull burning. Her lips formed words, he saw them move in the shape of communication, but the voice didn’t register. Her eyes peered into his brain and picked at all the little mishaps, all the little systems that could detect what middle-aged women said. Other students either starred in disinterest or covered their mouths with their hands, glancing at their classmates who were doing the same thing.

Atsumu’s hand was gone from his neck, this time poking him on the shoulder.

The chair didn’t scrape the floor when Akaashi stood up, the entire room was blank, like an empty canvas. Instead of people, instead of the yells of his name, he heard music in his mind, the music Oikawa would play through cheap earbuds. He moved quicker, quick enough so his hand was on the classroom door and sliding it open, the fresh air lifting the mental block from its state and returning the original sound back. 

Akaashi didn’t like running, he didn’t mind exercise, but running was straining. He passed closed classrooms until he was outside, the chilled air docking him in the nose and running up and down his arms. It scabbed and itched like ingrown hairs, under his skin and past the beats of static coursing through his stomach. It all congregated to one area, like moths to a light. They flew in spirals, through his blood and out through his mouth.

He leaned against one of the fences bordering the building, catching his breath. Akaashi made up his mind to pay his mother a visit at work, just to pour water over her head.

A deep voice echoed out across the empty park, a call of anger, and then he was being pulled into the track sheds, the space as dark as one would expect such a place to be.

Atsumu pressed his body up against Akaashi’s, even if there was enough space for them to both comfortably fit. Mats and different sports equipment lined the walls and floors, claustrophobic, but still open. The one above him seemed to be observing their perpetrators through a crack in the door, as slim as the space between bathroom stalls.

They were too close. Akaashi got all the smells from their previous encounter all at once, the smoke burning his nose hairs.

Atsumu noticed he was being stared at and returned it with a much stronger set of action.

“I offered to come get you after you fuckin’ dipped. Could’ve said something, would’ve been much easier to catch up with you.”

This boy was the last person Akaashi wanted to see. Or hear. Or be around. He didn’t want to be comforted by him, he didn’t want to be comforted by anyone, he wanted to crawl into his bed and sleep for another few weeks. Maybe then, after living as a hermit, his brain could decipher all the things happening around him at varying paces, and it’d make living a bit easier.

And again, there was Atsumu acting like Akaashi was the one who inconvenienced him.

“What was that about anyway? You sick or something?”

They sank down to the floor, Atsumu’s legs propelling outwards so they were at Akaashi’s sides. They sat in mutual silence, the twin staring at something on Akaashi’s face, and the latter making the effort to stare at the small piece of wood poking out between their bodies. He focused on the sliver of sunlight that cascaded into the room from the outside, just enough to give them light.

Atsumu’s hand was on his face, softly, and he was kissing him again.

Something snapped in Akaashi’s mind when it happened, just as it had the last time, like a cable that loosened into place. The subtle anger and hatred he’d had for this boy drained out of him like stress, the tense muscles retracting and folding around him to try and get him closer. He turned into something Akaashi could hold on to, something he could focus on to keep his head out of the clouds.

Atsumu’s mouth was warm and inviting, not like the first time, where the kiss had been like ripping off a band-aid. There was nothing hurried in the way Atsumu moved his mouth, it was only heated and slimy, still not like how kissing should be, but less childish in nature. Akaashi didn’t think it was gross this time, he just thought it still shouldn’t have been as careless.

Atsumu pulled away, his hand drifting down to Akaashi’s side. A thin line of saliva connected them.

“Feel better?” he asked, smiling. There was something sweet in his smile, overlaying the bitterness and narcissism, as if Atsumu actually had the ability to care.

It was that feeling, that moment of serene nothingness Akaashi missed. When they’d been close, pressed up against each other, their heartbeats synced, there was a lack of anxiety. Akaashi relished in the response when it occurred, like he was drifting elsewhere. He knew, initially, he didn’t like kissing Atsumu, he didn’t like being near Atsumu, but even so, he found himself pulling the other boy down and repeating the cycle several times more until his back was pressed firmly against the wall and Atsumu was above him.

He told himself it was the feeling; that was it, he wanted to feel nothing, he wanted to feel loved and cared for. He wanted the attention aspect, he wanted the hands on him, he wanted the dry stretch of land Atsumu provided when they attached.

It was almost as if he could convince himself it wasn’t Atsumu, it was just someone training his mind to forget about where he was. Atsumu was just the name of the person, the thing he could pretend with.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, breathless.

Akaashi looked up, lips shiny, his head fogged, and hummed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gross cooties


	9. i'm too sensitive for this shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He approached the counter, eyes scanning the lines of magazine cutouts below the glass, “What time is it?”
> 
> The man looked baffled, “Almost midnight. Where you supposed to be?”
> 
> “Hell, probably.”

The scene began like how all dreams do, something floating, like his feet were fifty meters off the ground. Bokuto’s senses eased in and out of exhaustion, flickering and mushing together into scaled tones, before the picture became more clear behind his eyelids. The added clarity aided in the final sense of landscape, a road and train tracks, the area deserted. There were buildings, a sky with clouds and the low rumble of the ground beneath him. It wasn’t a familiar place, but likely somewhere he’d been.

The train passed, long and passive, blinking windows with covered inhabitants. Bokuto couldn’t move, his limbs felt empty and cold, but calm. Like he was paralyzed, there was no feeling of nerves or blood movement. His eyes trained straight ahead, straight past the tracks and to the other side, where someone stood.

A boy of average height with dark, curled hair, that swung up at the edges and navy colored eyes that seemed to stick out in his persona. Slouched and blank-faced, a dark backpack sagged as low as the straps would allow, and picks of bland clothing that were all a bit too large for his thin frame. Akaashi was never one to stand out, never one to pick bright over dull, he always pushed rather than tow.

He didn’t seem to see Bokuto, his head glancing from one side to the next, before jogging to the opposite end of the road. Still frozen, Bokuto watched, watched while his instincts told him to grab onto the boy and only ever let go when the other told him to. 

When Bokuto’s head finally turned, Akaashi passed, the smell of him wafting through the papery air. He normally didn’t smell like anything, but when he did, he smelled fragrant and sometimes of chemicals. Either way, it was endearing, in a sense, for something of such little significance to shine so brilliantly.

It was the feeling of not being acknowledged that woke him up. In his room, the blankets bunched up at his feet, and his pillow halfway off the mattress. The window was open, the curtains thrown carelessly to the side. The lights and chatter of downtown drifted into his ears, his consciousness blinking in and out. His eyes adjusted quickly, the lines of the walls and posters that painted them alerting his senses.

It felt like the type of dream you have when in a coma, the type of dream you wake up disoriented to. The dream feels more like reality than reality does, so much so you have to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not still unconscious. Bokuto knew Akaashi was mad at him, like he always was, and let the initial elevated blood pressure pass like it always did. He was the one who did these things to Akaashi on purpose, he pushed him away, pulled him back, then tossed him aside, just to hope that they’d still be something in the end.

Bokuto rolled over and rubbed at his eyes, little stars forming beneath the skin. His head was spaced, way too far from where he was supposed to be, like his body was several feet in front of him.

The area stilled suddenly, like something was caught, just before his mother cracked his door open and slipped inside.

Still in his cloud of forgetfulness, Bokuto didn’t see the woman pick up his backpack and empty the contents out onto the floor. Her movements were quick and calculated, her body moving from one end of the room to the other, tugging clothes out from his dresser and kicking stray pieces of trash into corners. She came into view suddenly, like a flash of darkness, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to sit up.

“I know you’re awake, get up,” She sternly told him, lifting the sides of his limp body stiffly. He moved his eyes as she zipped the bag and placed it onto the bed, along with a pair of baggy jeans and a jacket he hadn’t worn since primary. 

She stood in front of him suddenly, frazzled, “You need to leave.”

Bokuto blinked, unaware of his ability to speak until then. He caught the haste in her tone, he understood what it implied, and wobbled to his feet. He quickly dressed himself while she lowly encouraged him, standing by the doorway while every so often sneaking a glance into the hall. Nothing produced noise outside of their hushed tones, communicating through heavy breathes while his mother’s anxiety made his own heart amp. Even if it didn’t seem like fear, she still seemed put on edge, which was enough to transfer the agitation over.

She was pushing him out, his bag falling limp on his shoulders, the straps running rogue. The apartment was dimly lit, the light from the outside filtering in through fogged windows. A radio exerted soft music from atop one of the islands, a sound Bokuto grew up listening to. It was too late for the restaurant to be open, the normal laughter that floated from beneath the floorboards vacant.

Then, after the atmosphere bent, the quiet altitude by which Bokuto stood collapsed on top of him. The commotion began downstairs, outside the apartment, where booming footsteps made their way up and past the barriers he’d tried so hard to reinforce. His mother spun sharply and ushered him back into the bedroom, where she hastily unlocked the window and helped Bokuto step out. 

The man’s voice became louder down the hall, where the front door rattled off its hinges. Bokuto’s mind was already moving at hyper speed, his feet quickly toppling over the sill where he sat while his mother combed her fingers through his hair.

“I don’t want him to leave again, okay?” She mumbled, zipping her son’s windbreaker and tousling his unruly strands into thick pieces. “I just need you to go for a little while. Come back when you want to.”

She shut the window and pulled the curtains, officially separating them from one another. No ‘I love you,’ or ‘be safe,’ or any explanation on why he had to leave. There was that lingering touch on his stomach where the exposed skin had been lightly brushed, only momentarily comforting, before it was taken by the handle and yanked away ferociously

Some sick part of him hoped that whatever his father was angry at, would be focused onto her for once. It made him feel like he had even the slightest control over the world, knowing his mother might’ve been getting the same treatment he was. There was a spark of something deep in his stomach, that maybe he would be saved again, found on the curb and coddled until morning came.

He had to convince himself he wasn’t five anymore.

Too tired to comprehend the situation, Bokuto pushed back onto the roof shingles and propelled himself outward so he dropped, the height not far enough to hurt his ankles. The alley was empty and a route he’d taken plenty of times before, familiar enough to give him a moment of relief. The night air was sharp and chilly, early March, right past the city’s average snowfall but definitely temperate enough. 

The pain he’d endured the past few months cancelled out every other emotion he might’ve felt if he tried hard enough, there was nothing to pull from, it was all empty matter seeping out from the cracks between his fingers. Life continued, like it always did, even if nothing was easier. He couldn’t hear, but he knew what was happening within the walls, and he made no mental note to come back.

The front of the restaurant was dark and unattended to, with trash and the remnants of outdoor decor scattered around the welcome mat. The sign indicating the cafe’s status stood up stubbornly, its light glaring at the nasty shadows curving up the walls.

Bokuto kicked the welcome mat and turned the sign over so it read ‘open’.

No one turned their heads when he moved, they kept their faces stiff and ignored the teenage boy burning holes into the ground. His hood was up and his hands were hidden, puddles of water splashing up and wetting the fabric covering his ankles.

He wanted to run and live his years recklessly like he had been, without the added issues everyone had to face on a day to day basis. He wanted those extra few moments to allow himself to breathe, he wanted to be able to look into the sun and not burn his corneas. Each building he passed looked the same, white exterior, some had windows, some had old men crouched on the benches bordering them, it all made to look like a city, even if it didn’t feel like one.

Cities had people around each corner, they were meant to fill the space. Bokuto didn’t feel like there were people around him, he felt as if he was walking down an empty corridor, on his way to strap his head into a guillotine.

He turned into a mini convenience store next to a building outlet, the inside empty save for the man behind the counter.

His head tilted when Bokuto entered, the cigarette between his lips merely a centimeter away from falling, “Ain’t it a bit late, boy?” the man questioned. The nametag clipped to his shirt read Washijou, a willowy man with a gray receding hairline. Stereotypical market cashier.

Bokuto approached the counter, eyes scanning the lines of magazine cutouts below the glass, “What time is it?”

The man looked baffled, “Almost midnight. Where you supposed to be?”

“Hell, probably,” Bokuto returned, nodding up towards the racks of tobacco behind Washijou. The man huffed and rolled his eyes, handing over one of the cheaper boxes from below the shelf, “You out causing trouble or somethin’? Why’re you out so late?”

Bokuto dug out a few yen packed away in the corner of his backpack, some his mother had probably left for him. He tossed it out onto the glass top and replaced the space with the package of cigarettes, tearing the plastic off in the process. It was a quiet exchange, Washijou still studying the motions as if it was comedy.

“How old are you?”

Bokuto would’ve responded more enthusiastically if he could’ve, still he glanced up cheekily and let a natural smile form over his mouth, “Old enough.”

“That’s not a good answer. Don’t get me in trouble.” Washijou turned, blowing smoke through his nose and stinking the place up even further. Bokuto, used to the smell, turned towards the door and let the bell chime, taking one last glance over his shoulder.

“Thanks.”

The man lifted his head, returning his attention to whatever he was doing before it was stolen, “Take care of yourself, kid.”

Bokuto sent one last wave and retreated, the sky a mix of dark colors from the overcast. His feet carried him up and towards the train station, where sad people and nighthawks stayed put behind the yellow line. He hopped over the barrier and blended in with the mass of sketchy passersby, a contrast to the normal lines of salarymen and mothers with grocery bags. 

He crouched by a woman standing to tie his shoe, the strings only laced up halfway. The cuffs of his jeans reached the back of his shoe, the feeling uncomfortable and damp. He rolled both sides a few times to keep it from itching the back of his mind, his thoughts so preoccupied, he barely noticed the train approaching.

The inside was as barren as late night trains were, lights flickering and all. Bokuto took a seat in the back corner, away from the few people sitting idly and minding their business. He tugged at his jacket strings so the hood folded over his face, enough so his eyes only faced the door to the next train car. His legs naturally folded outwards with his bag tucked in between them, the slouch as comfortable as he could get in between metal bars.

Several minutes into the ride, once the train began to move, shuffled footsteps made their way over to where he was sitting, and all Bokuto could hope was that the person wouldn’t sit next to him.

He kept his face turned the opposite way, doing the most to ignore the presence that eventually took up his own personal bubble. The person sat unnaturally close, even if they didn’t touch, as if the person’s goal was to make the people around them uncomfortable. There was so much space to occupy, so many empty seats that could’ve been taken, but begrudgingly, the person decided to seat themselves next to the sleepy boy with bags under his eyes.

Kind of like in music, or in war, where cymbals or bombs explode in the distance, white noise flooded his ears as the aura made no effort to move. Bokuto slumped his head onto the metal bar and closed his eyes, ignoring the dull ache behind them.

He dreamed again. He dreamed he was elsewhere, somewhere bright and empty, kind of like the night train. Unoccupied dreamlike states where he was only slightly beneath it, where he could still think, but he couldn’t feel or see. The best kind of dream where it felt like he wasn’t really there, but a place where he had people who thought of him and exercised those thoughts positively.

The train jerked and the person beside him nudged his foot underneath the seat, enough to wake him up fully. Bokuto didn’t turn, he kept his face level with the floor so no eye contact was made. He didn’t need the extra socialization, he’d had enough by that point.

“You’re never there.”

At first, it sounded like an echo, like Bokuto was daydreaming, and wasn’t hearing the voice of the person he’d tried so desperately to let go.

“Whenever I visit your place, your mom says you’re not there. I go a lot, too much I think, your family probably thinks I’m in love with you or something.”

 _Ironic,_ Bokuto thinks, but doesn’t say.

Akaashi stood up then, in Bokuto’s direct line of vision, and fiddled with his thumbs, “If you got sick of me, you could’ve just said so.”

He was in a letterman jacket, which was strange, because Akaashi didn’t seem like the type of person to wear such a thing. The fabric was too big for his lanky stature, the edges sagging yet still held in place by his backpack straps. Bokuto slumped further into the seat, unable to say much, simply because his mouth wasn’t letting him.

He’d never wanted to say so many things at one time, it was overwhelming and cancelled out his sense of talk.

“Do you hate me, Bokuto?”

The question burned bullets into his stomach, so much so he reached out, but Akaashi was gone, the train doors left ajar. The air stirred and he had disappeared, as if he wasn’t truly there in the first place. Bokuto sat up straight, free of his internal isolation, letting himself actually realize the weight of the situation. How he was the one to instigate this, how he was always the one to instigate these kinds of things, and how he was the person to ruin them.

Bokuto pulled his backpack up onto his lap, and ran. 

The doors had barely shut in his moment of contemplation, but he’d made it out in time to catch up to Akaashi and give light to his issues and excessive hubris. To tell him about how much not seeing him, even from a distance, put a strain on his day to day attitude. He wanted to tell Akaashi how in the time that's passed, he’d thrown himself onto the people he thought liked him, who wanted him, romantically or sexually, and allowed himself to succumb to what others thought they needed.

Akaashi never wanted anything from him, Akaashi just let himself be there and Bokuto took that and formed a weaving of desires and motivation. 

It was that piece of psychological torment that forced Bokuto away from Akaashi and split their friendship. He couldn’t deal with it, unrequited love, it burned him too much, too many times had he given his love to people just for them to make a monument of it to laugh at. Maybe that’s what drew him to the stupid kid and his stupid art in the first place, because Akaashi looked like he’d personally remove himself in the face of seperation, and that’s what Bokuto needed.

He needed someone who would completely dislodge themselves for him, someone who could build themselves on top of him and show that they shared some inkling of reason.

Bokuto had thrown out that reason long before he’d realized he’d fallen in love with someone who couldn’t reciprocate it. It felt like wings growing out of your back, except the wings grow on your torso, and the amount of time and stretch it takes for them to level out results in powerlessness to take flight.

Akaashi was already long gone and Bokuto, someone who was well-versed in the few places Akaashi frequented and how to find them, let himself take it as a metaphor for the things he wanted in life. He just wasn’t in the mood to fight for them.

Bokuto dug the packet of cigarettes out of his bag and lit one between his fingers, puffing in and out. Stood in the middle of an empty sidewalk on some street he didn’t know the name of, simply because he never paid attention to street names when visiting Akaashi. He never thought to ask what road he lived on, he just had the route engraved into his mind, because all he thought about- all he _wanted_ to think about- was Akaashi Keiji, and never where he was going.

Bokuto found Kuroo’s house a few streets south from the station, a townhouse within a much larger complex, from movement of trial and error. His family wasn’t the most accepting towards him, so he climbed up the air conditioning unit and knocked on his friend’s window.

Surprisingly, Yaku was the one to slide it open.

“It is two in the goddamn morning.”

From where Bokuto was sat, he could see the outline of Kuroo in the back, although it hadn’t looked like they were sleeping. Blankets and pillows were spread along the floorboards and no lights were on, but Yaku didn’t look tired in the slightest. His eyes were bright and open, definitely not the eyes of someone who’d been passed out moments before.

“Let him in, Mori.”

Bokuto did as told and trampled his way in, almost tripping over a much smaller body in the process. He mumbled out a quick apology and found Kuroo sat at the end of his bed, smoke filtering in and out of his nose. He was glaring knowingly, and Bokuto shrugged.

“So you ignore me for, like, three weeks, and then decide to grace us with your presence?”

Bokuto dropped his backpack up against one of Kuroo’s bare walls and cushioned himself against it, ignoring the different eyes on him. There were at least four of them, four other demons crowded around the tiny room, all curled up in different sections while lowly keeping to themselves. 

“I lost my phone.”

That was a lie, he’d stepped on it then thrown it into a river.

Kuroo nodded and leaned back into his mosh pit of pillows. The room smelled vaguely of dirty socks and weed, which could very well be the same thing, and the walls were filled with different colored tapestries. Yaku sat at the foot of the bed, blinking at Bokuto, waiting for any explanation or dent in the still atmosphere.

“You just dropping by? Got bored with yourself?” Kuroo mumbled, mockingly.

Bokuto pulled his knees to his chest and pointedly stared at the lump lounging on one of Kuroo’s pull out couches, blankets pulled up to the person's chin. A phone peeked out from the side, a game of sorts present on the screen. 

He didn’t feel like explaining, so he focused on the game’s movements, just to keep his eyes away from Yaku’s prying ones.

Bokuto wasn’t looking, but he knew Kuroo was rolling his eyes. “Didn’t feel like sleeping on the street," Bokuto replied.

“You can just say you got kicked out,” Kai turned from his position on the floor, smushing his face deeper into the array of pillows he’d made. The sounds were muffled by the fabric.

“I didn’t get kicked out. I just left,” Bokuto huffed.

“I don’t believe you for some reason,” Kuroo muttered and swung his legs over the bed frame, just to poke Bokuto with his toe. 

“Kenma’s staying for the weekend, these two showed up a few hours ago,” Kuroo thumbed over his shoulder to Yaku, who waved at the mention. “I almost wanted to ask you to come as well.”

He smirked then, “Almost.”

“Fuck you,” Bokuto gritted.

“You wouldn’t last.”

 _“Kuroo,”_ Kai warned, this time removing himself from his fatal attempt at sleep and glaring at the two of them. Yaku snorted behind his hand and blew smoke into the small piece of space between the duo. It felt like being outnumbered, although Yaku wasn’t doing anything to contribute to the small feud.

“You got _tired_ of Yuuki? Moniwa?” Kuroo paused, _“Akaashi?”_

Another voice, much smaller, piped in, yellow slivered eyes peeping out from the couch, “They don’t talk anymore.”

Bokuto grimaced beneath his hood, folding his entire body into a ball. His face felt heated, the flush bright and angry, “How would you know anything?”

Kenma snorted from beneath the wrap of blankets, eyeing him knowingly, “We still talk often. Unlike you.”

“Looks like you ended that friendship too. Sounds kinda familiar, don't you think?” Kuroo jeered, leaning on his elbows. Bokuto couldn’t stop the surge of resentment he suddenly had for his childhood friend, even if he wanted to, even if he wanted to cancel out the emotion. 

“Do _not_ compare me to Miya. That was completely different and you know that,” Bokuto sat up, defensively, just to see Kuroo flop back onto his bed. He was smiling, the expression not matching his recent tone of diction.

Kuroo sighed, flicking his roll down onto the floor. The wood burned beneath the extinguished flame.

“Feels kinda the same to me. You both did a shitty thing and then tried to justify that by ghostin' everyone,"he turned his face towards Bokuto, some sort of equal irritation beneath his lids, “the world doesn’t work like that. You can’t just keep running from everything, it’s gonna bite you back in the ass one day.”

Bokuto scraped his fingernail down the wallpaper, just to keep his mind occupied, “It already has.”

“Then quit- quit lying, okay? Just stop. Stop being yourself for five seconds, and maybe, _just maybe_ , something will work out for you.”

Kuroo turned towards the wall and pulled the covers up, fluffing his pillow all the while.

“I don’t know what, though,” he finished.

Bokuto's cheeks became wet, but not enough to become bothersome or noticeable. The prospect of crying at the expense of Kuroo seemed a bit ironic, since this was the person to pull him out of his meltdowns when he had them, although he was sure his friend didn’t mean a lot of the things he said.

He’d hoped, anyway.

“How is he?” Bokuto mumbled, keeping the blocked nose shivers to a minimum.

Kenma recognized the implication, and positioned himself so his voice carried better. He lifted off the couch and leaned onto the frame, his eyes looking to analyze, “You could just talk to him yourself, you know. He isn’t mad at you.”

Bokuto scoffed, “Of course he is, he’s Akaashi. He’s always mad at me.”

“I wouldn’t blame him.”

“He’s got a bodyguard now,” Yaku leaned back onto Kuroo’s legs, flat underneath the comforter. There was a light, playing smile on his mouth, likely from the addictive fumes. Yaku didn’t normally gossip.

Kenma explicitly rolled his eyes at him.

“One of the alum work down by the pit next to Ukais. He said he always sees Akaashi and Miya outside together, not that I ask. Says they're like, friends now.”

Kai smacked his friend’s ankle, giving up sleep all together, “You most definitely ask. Tenma’s attention span doesn’t last more than two minutes behind that damn counter.”

“He does when it’s Miya, he has issues with the kid too. He shaved his hair, I think. Looks like a damn clown.”

Three of the demons, excluding Kenma, laughed at that. Even Kuroo, who’s laugh was only shown by movement beneath Yaku, exerted enough to put a tiny smile on Bokuto’s face.

Still, something within him boiled over at the thought of Atsumu tainting Akaashi in any form. Not including the idea Akaashi wasn’t anything but an asshole, to both himself and others, it still bubbled the acid in Bokuto’s stomach and alerted a bit of a gag reflex. Akaashi to him acted as a gateway, even if he could just _hope_ his friend wouldn’t replace him, it still provided enough sustenance to assume Akaashi was still himself and not some hologram.

Miya Atsumu was a strange person, someone who persuaded the people around him to conform to his standards, then when he got bored, he’d toss them aside because he was allowed to.

The Miya twins were a conspicuous couple, a duo that had similar priorities even if the other didn’t want to admit it. Bokuto hadn’t gotten the chance to ever meet Atsumu’s brother, and had no intention to. He didn’t want Akaashi mingling with that type, which was an interesting thought originally, because Bokuto’s group at the time had been nothing better. Still, Akaashi had common sense.

Everyone was manipulative, everyone had that piece of toxicity somewhere, whether it was buried deep or barely grazing the surface. Miya Atsumu was a booming powerplant full of it, and if tampered with, only proved mass destruction.

“In conclusion,” Yaku began.

“Fuck,” The five of them repeated, in unison.

Bokuto didn’t remember falling asleep, he just assumed he did, awakening the following morning with his head pressed up against the back of Kai’s legs. Yaku had continued on a rant about Lev but his voice had gone soft, soft enough the other occupants of the room could cancel it out and fall asleep. Bokuto was the first to rise, with soft pieces of sunlight eating its way into the room. It was too early for the rest of them to be awake, typical night owl behavior.

He carefully pushed up the window and slid halfway through the threshold, balancing his bag between him and the sill.

“You leaving?” Kuroo mumbled from under his arm, eyes still closed.

“I have to.”

“Liar.”

Bokuto blew a raspberry and knocked his foot against Kuroo’s hand hanging over the side of the bed, “If you want me to stay, just say that.”

“I want you to stay.”

The two smiled at each other, softly. 

“I’m sorry for being… harsh. I don’t regret what I said, cause’ I’m friggin’ right.”

Bokuto rolled his eyes so far back into his head he could see the front of his brain. Kuroo blinked steadily at the exposed light, adjusting. The two held gazes, silent words transpired.

“Did he really kick you out?” Kuroo sat up, careful enough not to push Yaku. 

Bokuto looked to the ground, unwilling to tell the truth, and said, “I’m just gonna leave for a while. I don’t think your parents want me here.”

Kuroo huffed and leaned back against the bed frame, “Will you be gone… for a long time?”

Bokuto shrugged, “Maybe.”

“Who’re you gonna stay with?”

Another shrug. He hoped he didn’t look as unsure as he was.

“I love you, you know. You better… come back happy, or something.”

“I might not be back, Tetsu.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. Kuroo just winked up at him, although there was something underlying it, something melancholy. Bokuto wasn’t expecting to have this conversation with Kuroo of all people, someone who predominantly wasn’t the best at showing his affections. The others in the room stirred at the increase of noise, to which Bokuto took his chance to slip out.

Kuroo called out another farewell, to which Bokuto heard once his feet met the grass. Kuroo’s front porch lit up when he passed, the sky still inky. A man sat in a swing, a face similar to Kuroos but too old to be immediate. The man swayed to and fro, a metal pipe peeking out from between his lips. Bokuto gave him a wave and the man smiled in recognition, his attention returning to the sidewalk’s cracks in cement.

 _That was it,_ Bokuto thought. The incomprehensible fear inching its way up his throat had come to a halt as he stood underneath the bus station, this time unaware of his whereabouts, more aware of how he would make it there. 

Without thinking, he let the creeping smile climb onto his face, simply because he wanted to convince himself that this was a good thing. Getting away from the people who didn’t look for him when he was brought up, but instead surrounding himself with people who purposely set themselves aside.

 _Akaashi Keiji,_ was the first person he thought of, but when the bus came and the man behind the wheel yelled for him to get on, Bokuto let himself excitedly take one of the seats located near the front, instead of hesitating his arrival.

He leaned his cheek against the cold glass and for the first time in his life, Bokuto let himself sleep without the conscious reminder of where he was. Instead, the objective wasn’t how to escape himself, but rather where to find it.

And so, he went.


	10. not to mention the growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what it was supposed to feel like, Akaashi thought. Two people melting into each other, like the shared heat between them could create a new world between their differences. 
> 
> They were a satellite, floating within the vast alienation of space. They’d created a new universe.

The concept of time stopped.

Akaashi was, realistically, a moving piece of nothing that spoke when addressed. He wished there was a piece of personality hidden somewhere, but as more and more time passed, as the trees lost their green and replenished themselves, he sunk further into mindful hell. He thought of the anger and regret, the claustrophobia, or mechanisms to convince himself he felt something that was never really there.

He never forgot. Half way through his first year of high school, something inside him shut down like a fuse box. The paint on his buttons peeled off and the wiring was left in tangles to be dealt with by the future, and only the future. He never spoke his name, willed himself to never even think of the name, and purposefully took longer routes away from his street, just to avoid the urge to see if his bedroom light was on.

It hurt the most when Akaashi gave himself thinking space to really delve into the shelves and shelves of baggage. There, he found some inch of reason: there had never been any definitive way to break them apart. They’d just drifted, like how his best friend promised not to, which felt like having your joints twisted the wrong way.

Rejection from Seijoh up north wasn’t as much of a deal to him as it was to Oikawa, who seemed to take the hit harder than Akaashi did. They didn’t have the funds for such a school anyway, but having the upper hand might have given him the inkling of motivation his body craved from months of isolation. The school nearby accepted him, as he expected it to, and he attended the ceremonies and club meetings and even managed to meet a few people with similar interests.

None of them had the same energy as Bokuto. None of them could even begin to compare, and Akaashi might’ve hated himself for the comparison, but no one would ever fit themselves into his mind like Bokuto had. 

The first week was empty, like dry swallowing a pill. He sat a few rows in front of Atsumu, who plagued his thoughts more than he liked to admit, but thankfully left him alone until school let out. Club meets were more organized than how they’d been in junior high, now with third years to look after them, as well as several members Akaashi recognized. It was easy to ignore his own breathing with others around, rather than succumbing to overthinking.

He ran from things a lot more. Or that’s what he told himself; he breathed easier when his windows were closed and all his feelings were bottled up in one room. It felt less like a vault closing in on him, and more of a space he could’ve actually stayed if he didn’t let his hatred ruin it for him.

“Do you know where he went?” Akaashi asked one day, standing by a row of windows, catching him during their lunch break. The hallways were filled and as Akaashi pushed through, his skin became hotter and his body felt more like a cactus being poked through. 

Kuroo had turned stiffly when approached, alone, carrying a thick backpack wrapped around his front. His face was pulled tight, eyes drawn elsewhere, and looked as though he wanted to run away. Akaashi couldn’t think of a reason why.

“No. I just know he left.”

“Why?”

Kuroo scoffed softly, still refusing to make eye contact. He didn’t reply this time. Akaashi fought the urge to throw something at him, preferably something rough and jagged. Looking at Kuroo felt like watching your favorite person have another favorite person; someone that wasn’t you.

“It’s probably your fault he’s gone, you know,” Akaashi heard him say, though he was already turned the other way. Akaashi almost agreed, but instead decided to never acknowledge the other boy’s existence again.

Then there were other days when he’d bike out toward the mountains and sit beside one of the interstates, behind the guardrail, and stare out onto what could’ve been. He stopped sketching with sharpies and tried graphite instead; spikes were easier to form with his fingers that way. 

Landscapes became a common theme for his sketchbook, which became messier and messier with time and placement. Pages were filled with creams and backrooms, he told himself this had no deeper meaning, and instead of drawing people with ruined faces, he’d create things he could label. People had names, a life ahead of them, as well as foundations built up that made them into who they were. Akaashi could sketch out an ocean and proclaim himself a godly figure for designing it, if he wanted to.

He boxed away his oil paints and acrylics, slid the case under his bed, cleaned his room of any past residue, and hid the key somewhere he’d forget about it.

The twins posed a problem: Osamu was blissfully unaware, which gave the impression Atsumu didn’t want his brother to know what went on between them. It felt like a threat.

Akaashi didn’t think he’d care if anyone knew. He didn’t like boys; he liked Bokuto. He liked the way Atsumu touched him when no one was looking and the way he knew his mouth with his tongue, but he didn’t like Atsumu. There was too wide of a gap between them to be put in the same category. He liked the way Bokuto’s hand felt in his and he liked thinking about putting his lips on his until they were both numb. 

His mother used to say some stupid analogy, like how if someone matches your yawn, it means you have an emotional connection to the person. It made more sense now on why Bokuto was never tired around him.

At the beginning of winter break, Oikawa stayed for a weekend and rolled around his floor like they were distant relatives. He never mentioned the change in atmosphere, why the posters were gone from his walls, where his canvases were stacked. Keeping the normalcy felt like Akaashi could believe it as well, like nothing had changed aside from the pace of his thoughts. 

In the time he spent there, the majority he was draped over Akaashi’s couch with gifted holiday pajamas and another knitted hat. He gave Akaashi a present, a pair of yellow sneakers, with a card that listed out some of the reasons Oikawa thought of him as a good friend. 

Akaashi wishes he could’ve admitted he buried the new shoes underneath a pile of clothes in his closet; it was clear his converse no longer fit him. The fabric on the sides were ripped and the ink along the sides was faded and incoherant.

He didn’t really care. Nothing fit him anymore. 

Oikawa had some of his own school friends, some boy who made him laugh, another who looked up to him, and some others that weaved their way into his stories. Akaashi had begun to build his own life on top of his, producing scenarios in his mind of how his life would’ve gone if he was born one year earlier. If his family had the financial stability to have him attend a rich catholic school, where the population wasn’t eagerly middle class. Maybe he could have studied harder, ignored his artwork and infatuation, worked toward something that might have helped him in the long run.

Around midnight on the last day he was there, while the two were upstairs watching some dystopian movie, and because Oikawa can’t stay quiet for more than five minutes, he finally asked. “Do you two still text at least?” came the quiet, unassuming voice. Nothing like Oikawa’s normal interrogation voice. It was comforting.

“He doesn’t respond.”

“That still means he has a phone, though, right?”

Akaashi had lifted his head up and squinted so distinctly toward the television, his vision spotted, “Does it matter?”

Oikawa ignored the question, “I think you should ask his mom again.”

“She told me to fuck off last time,” Akaashi replied, rolling his eyes and squishing his back further into the cushion. Oikawa took none for defeat, he pushed his elbows onto his friend’s stomach and laughed when Akaashi yelped in pain.

“He’s ruining your life.”

They both got quiet at that. The volume seemed to fluctuate from the movie playing.

“I think you should paint something,” his mother says one day, the Tuesday after Oikawa leaves, the day his father had to leave early that morning. They’re both wearing holiday socks and thick pajamas, ones that made you sweat even in the coldest weather. For once, she doesn’t look like she could destroy the entire world if she wanted to.

There was a mixing bowl in her hand, as well as a multicolored spatula, but she wasn’t smiling. 

She dropped an egg into the mixture, “I never see you paint anymore.”

Akaashi shrugged, shoveling spoon after spoon of cake batter into his mouth, “Ran out.”

“Of paint or of inspiration?”

He spit the cake out and went back up to his room.

The realization he didn’t have to appeal to anyone to want to hang out with them hung over his mind like a dead cat. A kid from his class, Yahaba, often invited Akaashi and Watari to hang out in his basement, where there was a television not made before the 90’s, as well as other forms of technology you probably wouldn’t expect from someone who lived in that area. He enjoyed his time there, even if the time was spent on his stomach with his legs swinging, watching his two friends play games.

For a brief period, it almost felt like no one expected anything from him. Not that anyone really expected anything from him _before_ ; it just no longer felt like he was running out of time.

The late winter and spring months, the time of year your glasses fogged over, beat Akaashi with a metal bat. It felt like blowing a balloon, just for the rubber to look down at you and declare they saw you floating instead. 

It felt like Atsumu catching Akaashi sketching Bokuto more than once. It felt like Atsumu looking deep into his soul and past all the barriers he’d put up to shield his thoughts, just to come out and say, “If you were put into a room of all the people Bokuto loved, what makes you think he’d look at you?”

And suddenly, Akaashi stopped looking at the clock. Not because it stopped ticking, but because the bird who would jump out at him and scream at the top of its lungs was no longer present. Without knowing the time, he could tell himself it wasn’t moving and him and Bokuto were still together.

In school, where the boys rolled up their sleeves and the girls had antennas sticking out of their heads, Akaashi wore his shirt untucked and stood behind Osamu when they’d be approached by their classmates. They stopped giving him strange looks, but Akaashi thought it was more of the inches he’d grown speaking, rather than his actual output. 

He did his best to listen to what others had to say, rather than listening to his mind. He became less of a friend to himself, less of someone he preferred to listen to, like a radio station, and compiled lists in his mind of what other fifteen year old boys talked about. None of which he was actually interested in, but it was enough to contemplate what the fuck he was doing around such a group of people.

And why.

When he thought of speaking, of adding onto their ugly comments told by their equally ugly faces, Akaashi found himself staring at a distant version of who he was, except with big red letters painted on his face. He never needed a reason to speak, a topic of discussion, he just surrounded himself with people who could fill the space for him.

Around the week before school let out, he was looking up to the school's roof from the outdoor seating space, and said distinctly, “What would it be like to jump off there?”

The four other boys sitting on the bench with him didn’t cease their conversation. Only one spared him a look, a questioning one, but Akaashi didn’t look down. The sun burnt the skin below his eyes.

“Off the roof?”

Akaashi shook his head. The boy slouched against the back of the seat, arms crossed, deliberating. His eyes were sunken and resembled two yellow coins. He seemed to be the only one uninterested in what the others were saying, a frown stuck between his two eyebrows. 

No name popped up into Akaashi’s itinerary. He stayed that way.

Afternoons were spent either on his front steps coloring outside premade lines or listening to Oikawa whine about tennis and the heat. It might’ve taken him up to that point, but regardless of length, Akaashi began to feel thankful he was even in the room with Bokuto then; because even if Bokuto didn’t look at him, even if he barely saw him, Akaashi was still there. 

It was an arcade of some sort, something to put their fingers on and declare war over. Akaashi sat opposite of the street, against some curb, lifting crackers to his mouth from the pocket of his jacket. The indoors screamed of neon colors and everything he stood against, it’s outlines highlighting the sides of Akaashi’s slump. He’d escaped when no one was looking, while they were all much more immersed in firing off fake bullets than the ghostly presence next to them. 

The door shut behind him, enough to shake his shoulders. He didn’t turn around.

“I thought you went to the bathroom. You shouldn’t just leave like that.”

And sure, Atsumu was observant, but not the good kind. Akaashi could run, he could curl up into a ball and ignore the other boy’s thigh pressing against his own as Atsumu sat down next to him. He could slap him, he could watch him cry as he admitted to the entire world that Miya Atsumu was gay and that no boy would ever love him. He could watch his entire life fall apart from those four words.

“I felt sick,” Akaashi uttered, leaning down over his knees. He moved to the side so they were no longer touching.

Atsumu pressed his hands into the sidewalk behind them, staring up at the stars above, “You could’ve told me. I would’ve walked you home.”

In a split decision, one he didn’t really let pass through his receptors, Akaashi turned and replied, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Silence passed between them like a beating heart. It thrummed in Akaashi’s ears and turned his entire body green. He felt the acid in his stomach turn upside down, like in a container, then completely rip his skin to shreds. 

“What are we doing, Akaashi? Please remind me.”

Maybe it was this moment. This moment had him responding so aggressively toward the statement, because in Akaashi’s mind, it was all Atsumu’s fault. They were not together- they would never be together. Akaashi didn’t _want_ him, and maybe it was the condescending feel of dominance Atsumu had that pushed Akaashi to slap him so forcefully, tears lining the bottoms of his eyelids.

Akaashi stood up, unfeeling, the stinging in his palm propelling his legs backward and regretfully the other way until Atsumu’s face, filled with murderous intent, began to fade from his memory. Akaashi ran until his cheeks turned pink and he was standing by his front door, focusing in on the blinking lights from under the doorframe. 

He toed inside, watching keenly to assure his father was immersed into some show he liked, then bounded upstairs and into his bedroom. The lights were off, but his window was open, regardless of the heat wave and midsummer climate. It provided light from the neighboring houses, as well as from the moon and streetlamps. 

There were stains on his pants and the crumpled bag of snacks in his jacket, the trash discarded somewhere onto his floor. There were growing pains in his legs, kind of like the dull ache you get after pulling a muscle. His room was clean, too clean, and it bothered him, like he wasn’t the person fit to be in there. 

A door slammed from downstairs, then large footsteps raked up the stairway. Akaashi jumped into his bed, concealing his head with blankets and plowing his face into his pillow. It smelled like fresh laundry, a lemony scent. 

His door creaked open and he pretended not to notice.

“I thought you were supposed to come home later.”

Akaashi peeked out from the covers to look up at his mother, the hallway light blinding his senses.

“Felt sick. Just tired.”

The simplicity of his statement put a knot in her brows, but she still shut the door after. Akaashi covered his ears so the ringing would stop, like an alarm reminding him of his own ideas.

The following morning, from around midnight to midday, when he was sneaking downstairs to eat his fill, his mother looked up from a magazine and said, “Your friend stopped by earlier. Told him you were still sleeping.”

As he poured himself cereal, Akaashi could feel the mood she was in, not calm, but not anxious either. She’d probably want to argue, just to make herself feel better.

He sat down at the table by the backdoor, crossing his ankles under the table and purposely avoiding any contact with his mother. She swiped through page after page, leaning her chin into her palm. Eyeing pieces of furniture, as well as makeup brands and whatever else middle aged women looked at in magazines. 

It was this moment Bokuto Koutarou stepped through the kitchen’s threshold.

A brown backpack was secured over his shoulders and his hair had white streaks, the spike much more dramatic compared to before. It looked less natural, but it still suited him, like the word feral. His eyes were zooming from one edge of the room to the next, his grin untouchable and completely otherworldly. Akaashi felt the spoon drop back into his bowl, milk splashing onto the table cloth, although not noticeable.

“Sorry, the door was unlocked, I couldn’t help myself,” he paused, then looked so far into Akaashi’s eyes he could feel him touching the back of his hair, “Akaashi?”

He says this like he’s reading lyrics from a song. It took a few seconds for Akaashi to register it was his name, that the boy he’d locked up in a box and placed under his bed was calling out to him.

Akaashi stood up from the stool, then sat back down because his neck got stiff, then stood back up. His knees bumped the edge of the table as he struggled to wiggle out of the small space between the wood and cloth, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered unless it concerned the boy standing in front of him. He couldn’t speak, he stood a few inches shorter than Bokuto and stared, fighting off the urge to completely consume his face right then and there.

Bokuto took his hand, _Bokuto took his hand,_ and moved backwards, sending Akaashi’s mother an apologetic glance. 

“We’ll be back later,” Akaashi said, right before they both shared the same momentum and barreled out the door.

They were both running and laughing for no reason, their fingers together, the webbing between touching so roughly yet so delicately, it made Akaashis stomach fill up with nothing but sunlight. He felt the rays bleed out of his skin and intertwine with Bokuto’s, their anatomy completely matching for a moment before Bokuto’s hand was in Akaashi’s shirt and they were pushed up against the side of a tree.

Akaashi could smell the river. They’d crossed the bridge, Akaashi barefooted and in thin drawstring shorts, screaming at the top of their lungs like their voices had been quieted for years. Their lungs let go of air quicker than it took in, and once Bokuto had them hidden behind a row of trees behind the neighborhood, it took the same amount of time for them to take in each other’s viewpoint. 

Mutually, like two mutants, they swallowed at the same time, and then Bokuto was kissing Akaashi so hard they both stopped feeling. 

This is what it was supposed to feel like, Akaashi thought. Two people melting into each other, like the shared heat between them could create a new world between their differences. 

They were a satellite, floating within the vast alienation of space. They’d created a new universe.

Bokuto’s hands were everywhere, they’d scattered from his face to his sides to his stomach, skin on skin, all exploring the dips and curves of Akaashi. Akaashi’s hands were embedded in his hair like they’d belonged there, like his fingers in between the thick strands of Bokuto’s scalp were meant to weave their way into his fingernails. They breathed into each other's mouths, their lips shining and glossy from the sheer pressure of how close they were.

The backpack was on the ground, away from them, away from Bokuto’s attention, when all he seemed to see was the person in front of him. Akaashi ground down, arched himself upward so Bokuto could let his hands fall onto the small of his back, but his hands instead crept underneath. His fingertips roamed Akaashi’s stomach from beneath his shirt and the rim of his shorts, and it felt amazing, like being touched by fire.

Like a siren, all Akaashi could hear was the slow chant of _Keiji, Keiji, Keiji,_ coming from Bokuto’s mouth in between kisses, every so often there’d be a _yeah,_ or a groan if Akaashi moved his lower half the right way, and it felt like they both understood. It felt like Akaashi knew what Bokuto liked, how he liked it, how to get him to make noise, like he’d studied for it up to this moment. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Bokuto had mumbled, digging the side of his face so far into Akaashi’s neck he had to crane back.

And as pathetic as he felt it was, Akaashi wheezed out, “Same.”

Everything that had built up to that moment, from feeling like he was underwater, to correcting each line he painted of Bokuto’s hair, it all connected to this, now.

They never separated, their hands stayed glued together as they ran, like they were a part of each other. 

Akaashi’s feet were coated in dirt by the time they’d instead wrapped their arms around each other, still attached, like two chainlinks. Bokuto was laughing with his entire body, the sound coming out in spurts, spilling out of him like a broken grocery bag. It started by his stomach and worked it’s way up through his lungs, nulling Akaashi’s senses and declaring him paralyzed. 

They’d fallen down at some point, staring up through branches and leaves, past the sky and into the planetary system, where it looked back down at them. Their arms were wrapped and Bokuto’s backpack was used as a pillow, side by side, the buzzing between them still wearing off.

Speaking to the sun in humanoid form was easier than Akaashi had imagined, they talked about nothing as well as everything, like the clouds, how Akaashi’s legs got longer, or how Bokuto’s hair grew several inches in spike. At some point Bokuto’s shoes had been thrown into his bag and they were screaming along the edge of the riverbank, watching the colors in the sky sink from warm to cool. For a while, neither of them seemed to let the weight of their insides pull them down, rather letting it pull them up.

And everytime Akaashi found himself falling into Bokuto’s hands once more, pulling their mouths together, it reminded him that he could do that. He had the ability to touch and hold Bokuto in any way he wanted, because he belonged with him, nowhere else. It reminded him that they were hidden within their own makeshift treehouse, above the high rises and satellites.

He pinched himself. He didn’t wake up. 

The best part of Bokuto Koutarou was the understanding of whats to come; Akaashi knew they would have to address it eventually, but it was like they had a shared calendar between them, one that scheduled a time and place for it. 

Bokuto, pulling Akaashi by the threads of his fingers and heart, over to some fence that framed one of the motels downtown. It was cheaper, but still provided coverage, and over the night sky, the lights seemed to project strobe lights down on top of them. They’d climbed over the rough edges and landed somewhere on cold cement, the back of the motel staring back with big tiled lines.

A pool with its separate bathrooms, large enough to fit a handful of people, and its many lawn chairs. Akaashi should’ve questioned it, like how he questioned every other aspect of Bokuto’s wellbeing. Climbing over a fence just to be held by the waist again, kissed over and over, as if the world can’t see them, would’ve sounded like suicide to Akaashi a few weeks ago. He didn’t have the energy to figure out as to why he suddenly didn’t care.

Bokuto was tugging Akaashi’s shirt over his head through fits of giggles, letting his fingers brush Akaashi’s sides when he’d gone to pull it up. It felt sacred, keeping eye contact with someone who couldn’t take themselves seriously, even as Akaashi pulled his shorts down and threw himself into the water. 

It felt too silly to be real, like Akaashi climbing onto Bokuto’s back and burying his face in his wet hair was just a dream he was yet to wake up from. He pushed his face underwater and laughed when he was pulled under as well, the liquid pouring into his lungs like oxygen. 

When they’d stopped laughing, stopped breathing, stopped staring at each other, Akaashi thought to ask, “Where were you?”

Maybe it wasn’t the best time to ask after all. Bokuto’s face looked like a giant traffic light, pointing down at Akaashi with big red eyes. 

“I’ve been staying with my aunt. Down by Tagajo.”

Akaashi leaned against one of the pool’s walls, using his elbows as leverage. Bokuto was looking at him like he wanted to devour him, or murder him. Akaashi would be fine with both.

“Why?”

Bokuto shrugged and waded closer, pressing his chin into Akaashi’s collarbones. His hands crept up his legs, holding Akaashi stationary.

“Parents.”

“I thought you hated me,” Akaashi stuttered out, ignoring the insecurity he’d been burying lower and lower since Kuroo.

Bokuto started to laugh, quietly, but enough to get the point across. His face was light with that stupid smile, the one Akaashi wanted to smack off of him.

“I do.”

Akaashi nodded, out of breath, “Good.”

Then their mouths were on each other, but not together, all over. Bokuto tasted like chlorine and chemicals, the scent wafting off of him like perfume. Bokuto’s fingers were wrapped around his legs, his back pushed to the wall, cold enough to distract him from Bokuto's hands crawling up his thighs and under the edge of his boxers. 

Akaashi felt electrified. Like the sparks were moving up under his skin, moving in swarms like blood cells.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Akaashi,” Bokuto whispered, nipping at Akaashi’s shoulder, digging his face into his skin and marking his trail of kisses. Akaashi gripped his hair so hard, he thought it might rip out. Bokuto dug his fingernails into the skin of Akaashi’s thigh, the pressure sure to provide mini crescents for Akaashi to wake up to. He lifted his hands even higher, enough for Akaashi to let out a whimper of approval, which Bokuto seemed pleased at.

He didn’t mention the fact he thought of Bokuto’s fake girlfriend like a spider under his bed. He didn’t mention Bokuto’s presence, practically renewing his entire personality.

He didn’t mention Atsumu. 

They’d swam around some more, always touching some part of each other, moving toward the sidelines to hoist each other up and over the edge. They sat, Akaashi between Bokuto’s legs, both in nothing but underwear, with their feet swinging over the edge. Bokuto had his chin on Akaashi’s shoulder, holding his hands in between their knitted legs.

It hadn’t really hit Akaashi to ask why Bokuto was acting this way. What had changed so suddenly that spurred him to make such a rash decision, convenient or not, or why Bokuto’s energy matched the same energy he’d always had. It almost seemed like Bokuto had never left in the first place, though Akaashi could tell his hands got thinner and his arms much thicker and overall more boyish.

Akaashi didn’t think he minded. 

“How long?” Akaashi asked. 

Like Bokuto understood without context, he replied, “Since junior high.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Akaashi questioned, leaning back against Bokuto’s chest further, so they were both slouched over each other. His heart was making strange noises, but only in his head. 

“I didn’t think you were like that.”

“I’m not.”

Bokuto kissed at some spot on his neck, some spot that got him crunching up into a ball until Bokuto had to physically unravel him. He was laughing like some maniac, like he’d discovered some secret about Akaashi. He unraveled Akaashi’s hands and continued to attack the spot torturously, picking at it with his teeth and sucking.

“You sure?”

Akaashi pushed him off, breathing in the sounds of Bokuto giggling and letting a natural smile graze his face, “Yes.”

“But you like me?”

Akaashi dramatically pondered this, putting a finger to his chin, which resulted in Bokuto flicking his forehead. A smirk lifted up the side of his face and he said, “Yea. Kind of.”

Bokuto grinned so hard his cheeks got permanent wrinkles, little dimples popping up in retaliation for Akaashi’s fastened heart rate. He’d somehow ended up with his arms wrapped around Akaashi’s middle, his fingers once more digging moon shapes into the smooth skin. Akaashi could've cried.

“You could just say no, you know.”

Akaashi smiled at the water and Bokuto smiled at the back of his head. They both already knew the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello <3 i am offically off my 2 month hiatus lmao
> 
> !!!10 chapters!!!!! <3 thank u so much for the support so far, all the comments, kudos, bookmarks, everything! i appreciate everything given to me by the people who waste their time reading my word dumps.
> 
> also! my friend made a [playlist](https://soundcloud.com/user-772904104/sets/dont-leave-me) for this fic!! pls check it out <3


	11. once again i am a child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This had been his life for the past two months.
> 
> A figment of his imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'i think that's what art is: art is communication made in the hope that interesting miscommunications will arise.'  
> ― misha glouberman

_Apocalyptic peace_ is what she called it.

He could remember what she looked like. What she smelled like. And that was the only time he could.

Akaashi didn’t remember his grandparents, only the rides up into the hills to visit their miniature loft and the smell of cherries outside their door. Their passing hit his father pretty harshly, as any relative moving on might’ve, but Akaashi, ripe at the age of six, recalled propping his legs up onto a window sill at the back of the church with a mouth full of wafers, listening to the weeping come from a few doors down.

Even now, it’s difficult for Akaashi to really think of them without the looming disappointment his grandfather would have likely had in him. He was a harsh man with harsh morals.

On the church steps, leaving the funeral and its smell of death behind, was when the words first appeared to him. Not really within his understanding, but still enough to be stuck as a prominent memory from his youth. He still didn’t completely understand what it meant. Why his grandmother would speak in poems and riddles to a child who spoke in crayons and wax paper, he didn’t know. Her sentences were always torn between complete idiocy and a lack of full comprehension of what she was really saying, like an english teacher trying to tear further analysis from the color blue. 

Akaashi would mainly block it out, ignore her wasted breath and quick reminders of her presence constantly near him, but every so often her thoughts would leap transparently into his mind to tickle his brain stems. He hated it.

Kids don’t really know what resentment means. So Akaashi decided she was the color yellow. It was a color he never really incorporated into his drawings. 

It was also the color of pee and dandelions, which made his nose itch during spring.

They had been outside, a few months before her demise, with his grandmother sitting on some cement stairs up by one of the hikers trails, watching her grandson pick at bugs and dirt. The air was warm but still had an edge, right on the cusp of October, when most homes were beginning to dig out their old holiday decor from their closets and attics. From their angle, up high on top of trees and past all the main roads, Akaashi could see the edges of buildings and the skinny bodies of water he’d be returning to in a few days.

This was when she’d first said the words to him, flying over his head like a plane. 

Apocalyptic peace, in Akaashi’s own grasp, was when the world was so quiet and dense, it almost felt like there was no one else to entertain any of the words bouncing around in his mind. When the only noises that came were one’s own breaths along with any other environmental noise the universe decided to bestow on down to you. Depending on the time of year, Akaashi decided, the noises were either cicadas or woodpeckers.

Both equally disruptive. 

The ability to achieve such silence didn’t come easy to him now. He’d figured that until such a prominent member of his life had come to push and shove at him, Akaashi’s own little bubble was, in fact, just a bubble of peace and quiet. Even if it was more difficult to push his grabby hands towards, moments where his mind could just space out and ignore the creeping vulnerability still grew into his roots like it’d always been there. He had been living in such apocalyptic peace for so long, he began to forget how it felt to feel a bit of chaos.

There was a head in his lap.

Akaashi wasn’t fully aware of how it got there. The idea of hair touching his calves bothered him, the ticklish sensation irritating, yet easing. 

His attention was elsewhere, eyes pointed tautly toward the vast stretch of empty paper, the messy sketch a compilation of fir trees with green fingerprints lining the branches. The ink he’d used was seen through the opaque, an abstract swirl of monochromatic shades with the lines of his thumb traced out of lime paint. 

“Are you even listening?” Bokuto whined, rapping his knuckle against the back of Akaashi’s sketchbook.

The pen stopped moving across the page, a small and unnoticeable smile lighting up the side of the boy’s face. Akaashi leant back against the summit of pillows lining his headboard, adjusting his legs so Bokuto was facing upwards. 

“Should I be?” Akaashi mumbled, tugging at a piece of oily hair out of its constant tuft.

Bokuto turned over, burrowing the top of his head further into the crease of Akaashi’s knee. His feet were pointed up to the ceiling, both sporting pink and white striped socks with holes in the toes. His legs swung back and forth a few times, vats of prickly dark hair peeking out from underneath the legs of his rolled pants. 

“Not my fault you can’t keep my attention,” he uttered, pinching Bokuto’s nose bridge and snickering when he began to swat his hands through the air like a fly catcher. 

This is what chaos was supposed to feel like. Adrenaline alongside the bits of energy his lungs couldn’t keep within its small capacity, pumping through his veins like he’d been drugged. As calm and pure he felt, the unhinged vitality Bokuto brought with him everywhere casted onto Akaashi like his own personal fog. The lines between them that electrified the ground they walked on and allowed Akasahi to acknowledge that the sky wasn’t going to fall on him every moment he was okay.

The last few weeks of summer passed by as his conscience began to feel lighter and lighter, like a lamp being gassed on and off. Bokuto made it easier by patching up Akaashi whenever he’d feel the uneasiness start to leak through. A band-aid that constantly stuck to his arm. 

He decided a few things from August leading to September. One of which being, he definitely had the ability to love something. To attach to something. To feel comfort towards. It was an amazing feeling. 

He just couldn’t figure out why anyone would feel that way about him. 

Gray, Akaashi pictured, would be good to splatter out across a canvas to depict his first day of his second year. It rained that entire morning, from the moment he stepped out and rode to some gated alleyway where Bokuto hopped out from the second story window to be greeted. His shirt had been untucked. The spark of childhood seemed to grow in him then, like whatever gave him the bruises on his mind and heart were just gone permanently.

Affectionate gestures became a norm between them. Transitioning to ignorance seemed less than appetizing, but Akaashi managed.

They’d actually had their hands linked for the majority of the walk to the building that day, assuming everyone else would just take it as a way to keep them both underneath the umbrella. They didn’t speak much, just revelled in each other's presence until Bokuto was whisked away by a group of people Akaashi still didn’t know the names of.

It was the first time Akaashi could say he smiled when Bokuto was taken away from him. 

It was a chorus of exclamatory welcomings, Akaashi remembered, standing outside Bokuto’s classroom and peeping through a slit in the door. He was automatically everyone's acquaintance, with groups of handshakes and inside jokes circulating around the classroom and dropping deadbeat into Akaashi’s ears from the outside.

School wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, but school was school, just a routine. A constant flow of homework and chatter Akaashi never really indulged in. Classes were different, but not in a foreign way, different how Akaashi had been waiting for it to be. They were the same faces but more defined, there were no reminders of last year, and there weren’t any paper stick people walking around. The normality of it all was frightening at first. 

Easily, Akaashi stuck himself into it all, becoming one with the majority and remaining in the back of his classmate’s minds. There were a few people that popped into his sketches every so often. The girl in front of him who never turned around and seemed to have eczema on the back of her neck. Kanoka, he thought, but he could be wrong. There was also the kid who sat in the corner, normally surrounded, and liked to laugh like a duck. 

There was no way his laugh actually sounded like that, Akaashi was sure. 

It was January. 

Music filtered in and out of his right ear, the opposite earbud stuck into Bokuto's left, a few feet below him on the train’s uncomfortable seating. Akaashi stood in between his open legs, one hand on the bars above him, eyes closed.

They acted like they didn’t know each other, cramped in between the space of a handful of other people. Bokuto was equally loud as he was forceful, but knew when Akaashi didn’t want the rest of the world looking at him. 

So, he was quiet. They both were.

The walk from the train to Bokuto’s apartment was tiring, lugging around a backpack full of extra work for him to do before exams doesn’t do well for posture, and the incessant whining of Sendai’s back roads sunk a bunch of black dots into Akaashi’s peripherals. His hand was stuck into the flap pockets of Bokuto’s coat, their fingers wrapped around each other in the way only they found comforting.

Bokuto’s grandparents greeted them at the door. They’d started referring to Akaashi with different kinds of nicknames related to the weather, some such as gloom, or his personal favorite, mittens.

“You’re like another kid to them, you know,” Bokuto mumbles to him as they removed their boots by the door, stomping off extra snow onto the webbed carpet. The house was comfortable, warm and always smelling of some type of sweet fruit. 

“They’ve begun to transition from using adjectives to nouns,” Akaashi says, peeking through his lashes to view Bokuto stumbling over his own shoe. He flattened out a ridge of the runner to prevent any further slip ups and caught Akaashi’s eye with a blindingly open smile. 

“You’re gross.”

Bokuto scoffed, exuberates, “I haven’t even done anything!” and drapes himself over Akaashi’s shoulders.

“Stop looking at me.”

“You were looking at _me,”_ Bokuto hummed, sticking his nose into the area between Akaashi’s shoulder and neck. His breath was warm, running down the sides of his arms through his sweater and down into the floor. He was coated in Bokuto, arms running up and down his sides to touch as much of Akaashi as he could. Something he did almost everyday now, like a blanket permanently etched into his shoulders. 

“Your hands are still cold,” the boy observed, running his fingers across Akaashi’s palms with sweaty tips. 

Akaashi shoved him off, cracking his knuckles under the sheer pressure of Bokuto’s front. And sure, they were pretty exposed to the others seeing them, but the elderly chatter was loud and obvious from the other side of the house neither of them felt the need to put barriers up. 

Bokuto swung himself onto the first step of his staircase, leaning back on both his elbows, “Have you finished it yet?”

Akaashi scoffed, unzipping his coat and hanging the hood up onto a rack by the shoe closet. “Impatient.”

“I’m not impatient- I just like seeing myself,” Bokuto waved his hands in the air, trailing Akaashi up the stairs to his bedroom. A carpet with swirls of abstract shapes flopped over the edges of the wood, forming bubbles in between the two boy’s feet and the next step.

“It always looks the same,” Akaashi says, this time smiling with his back to his friend, assuring himself he can’t see it. He set his bag onto the side of Bokuto’s bed frame, digging out a binder with a sketchbook hidden inside the rings. There were small scribbles all over the front, some in pen, some in pencil, mostly Bokuto’s doing.

There was only what Akaashi could call a blob of red ink pushed so deeply over a seperate drawing, of a face, a massacre of red marker, a mass of anger and hate all balled up into one indented mark that sunk into the other pages. 

Bokuto never mentioned it. Probably didn’t even notice. 

“Your colors are always pretty. The ones you choose.”

Bokuto was right. The colors he chose _were_ always pretty. Nice and solemn. 

He drew Bokuto when he wasn’t looking. Sometimes scrunched up in the corner of his bed, sometimes with a grin while talking to someone else. Bokuto’s expressions were intricate, colorful, something that made Akaashi want to stare at for hours just to achieve the correct measurements. 

Akaashi perched on the side of Bokuto’s bed, leaning up against the wall filled with posters and stupid scribbles. He pulled his back up to his side and set up his binder and pencils around his crossed legs, making room for Bokuto by the headboard. As expected, Bokuto sang a quick farewell down to his grandparents and shut the door, rolling into a slugged position in the corner between his bed Akaashi. 

They positioned themselves until they were comfortable, Bokuto’s feet dangling off the bed and Akaashi’s sketchbook balanced on his legs while his pen dragged across the paper. He leant back even further, Bokuto shoving his head in between the conjunction of Akaashi’s thigh and elbow. 

“Is this comfortable for you?” Akaashi asked, glancing down at the head wiggling itself closer to get a better look.

“Of course,” Bokuto strained. 

They sat like that until Bokuto’s grandmother walked in, offering a plate of sliced pineapple and tea with honey packets she’d discovered from a local foriegn kiosk. It was warm, even if the windows were open and cold air pedaled in and out of the room like a swarm. 

This had been his life for the past two months.

A figment of his imagination.

Akaashi stood, accepting a bite of pineapple and quickly notifying Bokuto he’d be making a run to the bathroom. The hallway was comforting; like visiting an art museum with all the paintings torn down. The walls were a mess of photographs taken from, what Akaashi could guess, Bokuto’s earlier days, back when his parents probably remembered to take pictures of him. There was a notable amount of Bokuto as a child, as obnoxious looking as he was now. 

It was strange to think of Bokuto as a different person. Someone completely different, with a natural smile that could brace his face, a childish one, that didn’t speak of anything bad or unnatural. Just him. 

He began to count the minutes. Every second Bokuto’s laugh wasn’t bouncing around his eardrums and skating down his spine and into the floor. 

Akaashi felt the need to conserve the time he had with him. He didn’t know why.

The following night, Bokuto was tossing snowballs at his window, waiting for the lamp by Akaashi’s desk to switch on and for his head to poke out. His hair was tied back into a hat, blue and green intertwined together in a mix of thread and wool. By that time, the prance across Akaashi’s room was a routine, slipping on a coat pulled from his closet and his sneakers by the door. He rolled up his pajamas and toed downstairs, checking for the kitchen light. 

The living room was empty. 

Bokuto was already outside, hidden between a bush and the stairway to Akaashi’s front door. 

Then the question would hit him randomly again, even if it’d been given a solution plenty of times before. The question of why Bokuto did the things he did, ignoring the questions about his past, constantly a beam of light, even if he’d stare off into nothing for countless minutes if Akaashi didn’t remind him of his own self.

Akaashi wondered if he knew. If Atsumu had told him. If someone else, someone Akaashi didn’t know, had implied something to Bokuto, something to scratch his judgement of him. 

He wasn’t afraid of Bokuto knowing, rather the timing. Akaashi assumed it might have been better to tell him when they first found each other again instead of letting it marinate in his brain until he picked all the skin off his thumbs. Bokuto wouldn’t be angry at him, he might even laugh. 

And then it’d reset. The calm before the storm, like Akaashi was overanalyzing, but then why did he mind? Him and Bokuto hadn’t been together, or even in any similar relationship as to what they had now. Before everything came and snapped Akaashi’s neck while he slept, before Bokuto jumped beneath the ground and refused to come out, they had still stayed at a comfortable distance Akaashi could label as friends.

Some part of him didn’t want others to know. 

Some part of him didn’t trust Bokuto.

And that’s what kept him up at night. What made him itch whenever Bokuto would reiterate to him that whatever they did, Akaashi was his first, and Bokuto would remind him he wanted it to stay that way. 

Akaashi didn’t feel comfortable in Bokuto’s skin. Because, really, how long would they last? Continue to stay in that gray area, that limbo, of moral and space?

The snow seemed warmer. It was much thicker, the ice seeping into his socks and coating his shoes in white fluff.

Sometimes it was tiring being with him. A feat he didn’t want to admit, but something that had to be said eventually, whether Akaashi liked it or not. He tried to categorize it with the handful of other intrusive thoughts that seeped into his mind every time he let himself be preoccupied. 

And despite everything, Akaashi still felt like he was jumping from cloud to cloud. 

“You seem tired,” Bokuto said. Akaashi tugged at a stray piece of his hair falling out of its usual tuft of mess, hidden underneath wool and snowflakes. He had on striped pajamas, ones far too big for him, cinched around his waist with a shoelace string. 

“It’s late.”

Bokuto tilted his head back, calm, acknowledging the fact no one was there to look at him, perceive him. “You’re never really tired, though. You don’t really sleep, do you?”

It was phrased as a question, but didn’t really sound like one. Bokuto already knew the answer, he’d been in the same bed as Akaashi far too often to not know about his strange sleeping schedule. 

“Theoretically,” Akaashi began. 

“Here it comes!”

 _“Theoretically,”_ Akaashi pinched, nudging Bokuto’s cheek as a way of emphasising his point. “If someone were to ask.”

Bokuto looked at him quizzically, his neck arched like a dog who’d just been told to sit. 

Akaashi tugged his hand out of Bokuto’s and gestured between them, almost comically so. The fuzz on his jacket jumped in two different directions to accommodate the wind, seemingly picking up as soon as Akaashi began to speak. A few buildings rose ahead of them, a few miles off the street after its share of wall shops and parking garages. It was oddly quiet, the snow sucking in the noise and burning it down with its icy fingertips. 

“Are we together?” Akaashi mumbled, afraid of both answers, positive or negative. 

Bokuto shrugged. 

It was funny how Akaashi could do so many things at once without thinking about it. He was smiling to himself, because how absurd of a question, you don’t just stick your tongue into someone’s mouth and ogle at their ass when they move to not declare you’re dating them. It was almost a laugh, coming out in short bursts, so absurd, so outlandish, even to him, which makes sense why he didn’t hear the, “Were you and Atsumu together?”

He kept walking. Akaashi kept fucking walking, the laugh still fresh in his throat. It’d started to burn.

Bokuto didn’t stop either, popping his hand back into Akaashi’s skin like he’d never removed it. 

Akaashi turned, leveling his voice, “What?”

The worst part was that he asked it like it was a totally normal question to ask. Like it was common knowledge. _Like it was common knowledge._

“Y’know. Kuroo told me you two were kind of friends.”

“We weren’t together.”

Bokuto laughed, “That’s not what he said.”

It sparked some sort of defensiveness in Akaashi, like he was lying, even though he obviously was not. Bokuto sounded far too calm, far too driven, like someone was pushing at his back to heave him forward.

They sat down on one of the benches bordering the bridge, right across a group of old men squatting outside a corner shop. “That’s kind of a stupid thing to say,” Akaashi huffed, leaning against Bokuto’s shoulder.

“Agreed.”

They didn’t speak again after that. 

Maybe the walk to school the following day felt a bit more tenacious than usual.

Whatever. Akaashi didn’t notice.

Bokuto was all smiles as he normally was, a bag slung across his shoulder. Kuroo greeted them by the benches underneath the school’s awning, flicking a coin between his fingers. He looked different, even if they’d seen each other yesterday. His cheeks were paler of color and his lips had pieces of dead skin hanging off of them.

They still hadn’t spoken since the previous school year, which Bokuto picked up pretty quickly, as curious as he was. He never pushed it.

Akaashi didn’t feel any inherent dislike toward Kuroo; just as he didn’t have any dislike for anyone really, Kenma, Oikawa, Osamu. He’d learned to ignore the hatred and turn it into ignorance, but even with Kuroo, it left a deranged feeling in his stomach, something awkward, but not particularly bad. Kuroo always looked like he wanted to say something to him, like he was balancing it on the tip of his tongue, but more than often decided against it. 

It was uneasy, but tolerable. More than tolerable actually. Kuroo could be funny when he wanted to.

Like when he’d told Bokuto about Atsumu. That was really funny.

Akaashi felt like gagging.

Once they’d parted, Bokuto thwacked Akaashi on the forehead and bidded them their opposite ways, keeping their eyes together far longer than what should’ve been normal. The inside of the classroom looked far too open; with the windows and students hanging out of them like birds, the cold air seeping into the classroom and dusting Akaashi’s arms with bumps.

He slid into his desk and pushed his cheek into the cold wooden surface, cursing at anyone who dared to pull him out of his reverie before closing his eyes.

It had been more draining than Bokuto had expected. His mind had been moving so fast that night, not fully aware of the other pedestrians, women in tight dresses and the men clinging to their arms. City lights blinded you, ripped your consciousness from beneath and slapped you in the face with it.

Living comfortably was something new to him. After the train had stopped and the sun began to turn the sky pink, Bokuto found himself stuck on a sidewalk looking both ways, turning into what he assumed was a street he’d recognized. After a good mile of walking, when the early risers and cubicle workers began to rush to coffee shops and breakfast restaurants, he faced an office building with cement steps and a sliding door.

The insides were empty. The only lights that shone through the glass was a window up top of the building. 

Without much else to do, Bokuto pulled his bag into his lap and sat on one of the bottom steps. He pulled his knees to his chest and waited for cars and bicycles to start passing.

Around noon was when she showed up. She had a gray pencil skirt and a green jacket, a bright contrast to her hair, which was tied up like a big knot. She’d scrunched her face and blinked a few times as if making sure her nephew was actually there, sitting atop the steps of her workplace, a handful of miles from his home. 

“Koutarou?” she’d whispered, approaching him slowly, like he’d bite her. Like he’d whip out and strike her across the face. Her bag hung limply by her side, folders and a pair of gloves tilting out of one of the side pockets.

Bokuto doesn’t remember if he cried or not, but he could remember his aunt hasilty ushering him into her car and telling him to wait there. Whether or not he sat in the back seat and sobbed was a passing utility of his mind. Repression.

About twenty minutes passed before she had come back, carefully striding as fast as she could to her car without hurting her ankle. It might’ve been longer. Bokuto didn’t mind, really. The car was warm and smelled of pine trees, a divergence from the outside smell of gray snow mixed in with car exhaust. 

“Come, sit up front with me,” she’d smiled, softly and sympathetic. When Bokuto didn’t move she put the car into drive and pulled out of her parking space between two other cars, reaching behind the front console to put her hand on Bokuto’s knee. It was an awkward position but Bokuto appreciated the effort. 

“Have you eaten? Does your mom know you're here?” she eyed him from the front mirror, placing both hands back onto the steering wheel. “Stupid question. Don’t answer. I’ll call her later.”

Bokuto smiled. Truly smiled.

His aunt’s house was friendly from the outside, a traditional modern suburban, fit for two people. There were pots of plants lined up along the front along with a watering can. The outside was white and paneled, as he’d remembered it the last time he’d visited, with a slanted roof and a rocky walkway. He was stiff inside, unknowing of where to put his bag, where to stand, what to do. His aunt had just grinned at his uncertainty, tugging him to the main living area. 

“You can just leave your stuff here. Just relax for me, okay? Go shower. You’ll feel better,” she’d said, but Bokuto couldn’t relax, not for one moment. His head had started to pound in the car, the feeling meshing into a numbing yet uncomfortable sensation behind his eyes. His neck was stiff from the train and his stomach hurt, from hunger or from fear, he didn’t know. 

His whole body felt like it could collapse in on itself. 

He’d woken up a few hours later on the couch in the same position he’d sat down, not remembering falling asleep but not fully regretting it. The television was on and his shoes had mysteriously disappeared from his feet, a blanket also draped over his legs. 

A note was put next to a plate of tangerines on the coffee table, reading, _food in the fridge. i talked to your mom. i’ll be back before six._

The same feeling curled in his stomach. The feeling of detestment. Not toward his aunt, but his mother, the one who’d kicked him out like he’d meant nothing. He wanted nothing more than to never see her again, to live in the countryside with his aunt and work at a factory or something. To stop existing from the world.

_I wonder how Akaashi is doing._

As promised, his aunt had returned just before six with a box of fried chicken and frozen french fries. Judging by the sheer excitement in her face, he guessed this wasn’t something she did often.

“She’s sorry, Koutarou.”

Bokuto knew she didn’t believe it either, but decided not to bring it up. His mother wasn’t sorry about things, she let regret slip from her fingers like slime. 

The chicken was good. The best meal he had in months, several wings and legs running down his throat in a greasy lump. Every time he’d choke, they would laugh together, as if reminiscing about what could be better, and after dinner, he’d helped clean up, like he was wanted around the house.

His aunt had a son and a daughter, both of whom didn’t talk to her anymore. One had moved to the states and the other had a love for traveling, almost as much as she hated her own family. Bokuto couldn’t blame her of course, he wanted to do the same thing, just for a different reason. Different times. With someone he loved and cherished. But his aunt wasn’t a bad person, just wasn’t there enough for them. 

“You can’t stay with me, you know that right?”

Bokuto nodded and scrubbed at a plate with the wet sponge as harshly as he could. A splotch of soapy water got onto the front of his shirt. 

“I’m going to talk to your grandparents. See if they’ll take you. I won’t tell your mother.”

And Bokuto believed her. 

The most prominent part of that night was the part when his aunt had sat him down and asked him, _really_ asked him, what was going on. Who he was. 

And he could tell she wanted to know. He could see the curiosity hidden behind her eyes, peeling away at the layers of him, beyond just the normal need of comfort, she wanted to know who her nephew was. She wanted to know what her sister had been hiding from her for so long.

He told her everything. From the beginning to the end. He couldn’t remember skipping over any singular detail.

The lack of emotion on her face when he’d finished freaked him out initially, but then she’d begun to tear up, seeming trully regretful of her ignorance. He wasn’t upset with her, not at all, there was no way she could have known what was happening. She told him she was aware of his father being taken away but didn’t know he came back. That whatever was going on, he was welcome in her home, whether she was there or not.

And then came Akaashi.

It was fitful for her at first, he could tell. Not a new concept, but she didn’t seem to have a real grasp on what he was telling her. How much he’d loved this boy, even if he wasn’t an adult yet, even if he hadn’t really experienced the world. He was sure that he was completely infatuated. 

He also made sure to tell her that he had no intention of ever seeing his parents again. She’d just hugged him and told him to be careful. To be careful with happiness because of how fast it could disappear. 

It wasn’t soon after that he’d been taken back to Sendai and put under a new roof. A few months had passed and Bokuto had found himself working a temporary job at one of the restaurants on his aunt’s street. The waiters were all friendly, much older than him, but seemed as interesting as a thirty year old waiter could get. One of the girls, a kind college student with impending debt hard on her shoulders, would sneak him boxes of stir fry when their manager wasn’t looking. 

He never learned her name. She probably didn’t know his either. 

The first time his aunt told him his grandparents were driving up there to take him back to Sendai, he had run out of the house and out toward the other end of the town. Somewhere they couldn’t find him. His legs carried him until the sky went dark and his calves had begun to burn. Bile rose up into his throat and he had thrown up into some rose bushes by the front of an apartment complex. 

Maybe he could train hop, he’d thought. He could take the girl from the restaurant and they could live in the woods and eat grasshoppers. Bathe in the river. 

Reluctantly, and with a tantrum, his grandmother had forced him into the car the following morning and made him sit in his own anger and frustration until he calmed down. She hadn’t let him out of the car until he wasn’t scowling at her. 

The bitch.

He hadn’t actually thought to go see Akaashi until eventually, his grandparents were kicking him out of his room and forcing him to go out and enjoy himself. To see the world. He didn’t want to see anyone; not Kuroo, not Yaku, not Hinata. No one.

And then, somehow, he’d ended up in Akaashi’s neighborhood. Like his body had moved there itself. 

The curtains were drawn on each window but it was too early for anyone to be out. Bokuto knew Akaashi’s mother well enough to know she didn’t have work that day, and even if she did, she enjoyed being late. He knocked twice and the door opened almost instantly, like he had been being watched. Like she had been expecting someone. 

“Oh. Hello.”

Bokuto nodded. She seemed to recognize him as Akaashi’s friend, but not enough to know his name. 

“He’s still asleep. Sorry.”

And she shut the door.

Bokuto couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh.

Maybe it was weird to sit on their front steps until noon. He’d gotten used to the feel of waiting, anyway, so it wasn’t too hard for him. No one seemed to frequent that area, whether to be walking their dogs or just going for a jog. No cars either, different than where he lived, even if it was only a few minutes walking distance. 

Truly, he had no real idea what he was going to do with Akaashi once he had seen him. Bokuto didn’t really plan that far ahead, actually seeing him in the flesh, as amazing and in his glory, with unbrushed hair and all. He thinks they might’ve shared some sort of reaction between them, like a clean cut of electricity or two chemical elements being mixed together. Some sort of energy to propel them out of the doors as quickly as they went. 

Kissing Akaashi was like everything he’d imagined it to be and more. He tasted gross, which he’d never tell him of course, but something about him, his skin, his body, his face, seemed to be pulling him closer and closer to Bokuto. He hadn’t even planned to kiss Akaashi, to do any of the things he did with Akaashi, but it happened, and _God,_ he was happy they did. It was like he’d been waiting for it, to feel Akaashi on him, to be with him. 

He still remembered what Kuroo had told him: _just stop being yourself._

And it was good. Everything was good. The feeling of loneliness and the cut of anger and sadness deep in his gut seemed to fade.

Sometime in March, Akaashi had shown up, looking sweaty, even in the cold air. His clothes were sticking to him at odd angles and his hair had a streak of wetness across his forehead. It’d looked like he had run here, with some sort of look in his eye Bokuto couldn’t put his finger on. 

Akaashi walked with some sort of conviction up to Bokuto’s bedroom, sketchbook in hand. 

“I’m going to draw you,” he declared.

Bokuto nodded and sat back against his wall, watching Akaashi flip the pages open atop his bedsheets and flip to a clean page toward the back. He had swallowed several times in the past several seconds, his eyes flicking up to Bokuto and back down toward the paper and his pen. He seemed nervous, almost.

“You okay?”

Stiffly, Akaashi said back, “Fine.”

Bokuto shuffled toward him, standing a good few inches from Akaashi’s seated frame. He wouldn’t look up. 

Silence took the room in its grip, the smell of ink and the sound of rough papyrus going quiet. Then, like Akaashi had it in mind already, Bokuto was being pushed toward him, kissing him like neither of them had eaten in months. Hunger drifted off of Akaashi in waves, if that was possible, and Bokuto decided that yes, Akaashi was fine. Very, very fine. 

He clawed at the front of Bokuto’s shirt, slipping his hands under the fabric and exploring it with his fingernails. He seemed to want to go farther this time, like an unspoken rule between them, the words spoken by their eyes alone. Bokuto acted like he knew what he was doing; he did not. 

This was happening. This was going to happen.

The initial feeling started behind his neck surprisingly, a rising heat that lifted from his face and made its way down his spine, down toward his legs. Akaashi had pulled him between his thighs, Bokuto leaning atop of him, his arms caging Akaashi in. It was hot and sticky between them, the sweat never having truly evaporated, now sinking into Bokuto’s exposed arms and onto his pants. 

Akaashi pulled his shirt over his head, his face flushed, and started to work on Bokuto’s. It was an old military shirt he’d stolen from his grandfather, not that it mattered in that situation, really it was weird for him to be thinking such things at such a crucial time. Akaashi was breathing hard enough for Bokuto to see his nostrils flare up, his stomach inflating and deflating with such force Bokuto wondered if he could see the same. He wondered if he was doing the same things, letting out the same noises and moving the same way, keeping their mouths attached.

Akaashi was digging at the string of Bokuto’s pants, untying the knot and making a feral attempt at kicking them down, snickering into Bokuto’s lips when he failed. 

He was afraid to look up when the door opened. 

It happened too fast, Bokuto wasn’t really sure it happened at all. Akaashi was pushing him off and tugging his shirt back over him and it took half the time for Bokuto to process what the situation might have looked like to someone else. Like his grandma.

But it was what it looked like. Exactly what it looked like.

She’d slammed the door once she’d gotten one glance; one glance and she’d left the room in a gasp. He wanted to puke, to throw himself out the window, to never look at Akaashi or his grandparents again. They’d all know, everyone would know, his father would know, they’d all know by tomorrow. He’d be kicked out of another house, have to live with someone else, lose everything he’d built up.

Again.

Vulnerability, Bokuto decided that day, was the most dangerous thing he’d ever encountered. He let his resolve slip for merely a few minutes, a few minutes to let himself feel Akaashi as a reward, as something he’d wanted for so long, to finally bask in his own artificial sunshine he’d made for himself.

“Be careful with your happiness,” she’d said. 

“You don’t know how fast it can get away from you, without even realizing it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for every comment and kudos <3


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